Judith Lichtenberg

This paper has two aims. The first is to describe several sources of the moral responsibility to remedy or alleviate global poverty—reasons why an agent might have such a responsibility. The second is to consider what sorts of agents bear the responsibilities associated with each source—in particular, whether they are collective agents like states, societies, or corporations, on the one hand, or individual human beings on the other. We often talk about our responsibilities to the poorest people in the world, or what we owe them. So the question is who this we is. I shall argue that the answer depends on the source of the responsibility. Some responsibilities—one species of causal responsibilities—belong in the first instance to collectives, although they will also trickle down to at least some individuals within the collective. Other responsibilities—humanitarian responsibilities, and a different species of causal responsibilities—belong in the first instance to individuals, but can, I shall argue, “trickle up” to collectives of which individuals are members.

Many philosophers argue that reasonably well-off people have very demanding moral obligations to assist those living in dire poverty. I explore the relevance of demandingness to determining moral obligation, challenging the view that “morality demands what it demands” and that if we cannot live up to its demands that’s our problem, not morality’s. I argue that not only for practical reasons but also for moral-theoretical ones, the language of duty, obligation, and requirement may not be well-suited to express the nature of our responsibilities in these matters. But it is nevertheless morally imperative to reduce global poverty and inequality. Distinguishing between the Ought of states of affairs and the Ought of moral obligation, I defend an approach that looks to institutions to alter the environment within which people make choices and that employs our understanding of human psychology to encourage changes in behavior.

This paper has two aims. The first is to describe several sources of the moral responsibility to remedy or alleviate global poverty. The second is to consider what sorts of agents bear the responsibilities associated with each source—in particular, whether they are collective agents like states or societies or individual human beings. We often talk about our responsibilities to poor people, or what we owe them. So the question is who this we is. I argue that the answer depends on the source of the responsibility. Some responsibilitiesbelong in the first instance to collectives, although they will also trickle down to at least some individuals within the collective. Other responsibilities belong in the first instance to individuals, but can, I argue, “trickle up” to collectives of which individuals are members.

Having learned my just war theory at Michael Walzer’s figurative knee, for many years I accepted the independence of jus in bello from jus ad bellum unthinkingly. Just war theory consists of two separate parts, one concerning the legitimate grounds for going to war and the other the rules of engagement once war had begun. This two-part view, the “independence thesis,” went hand in hand with the “symmetry thesis,” or “the moral equality of soldiers”: soldiers whose cause is unjust have the same rights to fight and to kill as those whose cause is just. But troubling questions sometimes crowded in. Doesn’t the justice of a country’s cause affect what actions it can legitimately take? Can’t victims of aggression legitimately do things aggressors cannot? Most fundamentally, “how can there be permissibly violent means of pursuing impermissible ends?”[1] Walzer casts glances at these problems when he proposes the idea of a “sliding scale,” in which the rules of war yield “slowly to the moral urgency of the cause: the rights of the righteous are enhanced, and those of their enemies devalued.”[2] He rejects the sliding scale in favor of the weaker qualification, “supreme emergency,” in which the rules of war are overridden “only in the face of an imminent catastrophe.”.

Debate about the responsibilities of affluent people to act to lessen global poverty has dominated ethics and political philosophy for forty years. But the controversy has reached an impasse, with the main approaches either demanding too much of ordinary mortals or else letting them off the hook. In Distant Strangers I show how a preoccupation with standard moral theories and with the concepts of duty and obligation have led philosophers astray. I argue that there are serious limits to what can be demanded of ordinary human beings, but that this does not mean we must abandon the moral imperative to reduce poverty. Drawing on findings from behavioral economics and psychology, I show how we can motivate better-off people to lessen poverty without excessively taxing their moral virtue. And I argue that this approach is not just pragmatically but morally appropriate.

To many people, the very idea of nationalism smacks of ethnocentrism or even racism. They suspect that violence, hatred, and distrust of the Other, embodied in a sharply divided world of "us" and "them," always lurk within the nationalist's heart. Recent world events have done nothing to allay these suspicions. Nationalism, on this view, is an evil to be overcome by a cosmopolitan stance that denies the significance of national boundaries. Yet positive values have also been associated with the nationalist idea, as some recent accounts remind us.ii Democracy, autonomy, community, pluralism -- these goods have been connected with the development of nationalism over the past several centuries. Some of the values underlying nationalism also manifest themselves today in its dilute and more respectable cousin, multiculturalism. And it goes without saying that whatever its merits, nationalism exerts enormous power on the aspirations of many people around the world

Many philosophers argue that reasonably well-off people have very demanding moral obligations to assist those living in dire poverty. I explore the relevance of demandingness to determining moral obligation, challenging the view that “morality demands what it demands” and that if we cannot live up to its demands that’s our problem, not morality’s. I argue that not only for practical reasons but also for moral-theoretical ones, the language of duty, obligation, and requirement may not be well-suited to express the nature of our responsibilities in these matters. But it is nevertheless morally imperative to reduce global poverty and inequality. Distinguishing between the Ought of states of affairs and the Ought of moral obligation, I defend an approach that looks to institutions to alter the environment within which people make choices and that employs our understanding of human psychology to encourage changes in behavior.

Leveling the Playing Field examines the admissions policies of contemporary American colleges and universities in light of the assumption that enhancing the educational opportunities of lower-income and minority students would make American society more just. The book evaluates controversies about such issues as the nature of merit, the missions of universities, affirmative action, the role of standardized tests, legacy preference, early decision, financial aid, the test-prep industry, and athletics