Gillian Brock

Cosmopolitanism versus non-cosmopolitanism : critiques, defenses, reconceptualizations

1. Rethinking the Cosmopolitanism versus Non-Cosmopolitanism Debate: An Introduction 2. We Are All Cosmopolitans Now 3. On the Relation Between Moral and Distributive Equality 4. Cosmopolitanism Without If and Without But 5. Cosmopolitan Justice and Rightful Enforceability 6. Is There Really a Human Rights Deficit? 7. Severe Poverty as a Systemic Human Rights Violation 8. For (Some) Political and Institutional Cosmopolitanism (Even if) Against Moral Cosmopolitanism 9. Cosmopolitanism: Liberal and Otherwise 10. The Social and Institutional Bases of Distributive Justice 11. Human Dignity, Associative Duties, and Egalitarian Global Justice 12. Worldly Citizens: Civic Virtue without Patriotism 13. Collective Agency and Global Non-Domination 14. The Cosmopolitan Controversy Needs a Mid-life Crisis 15. Concluding Reflections

Needs, Moral Demands and Moral Theory

In this article we argue that the concept of need is as vital for moral theory as it is for moral life. In II we analyse need and its normativity in public and private moral practice. In III we describe simple cases which exemplify the moral demandingness of needs, and argue that the significance of simple cases for moral theory is obscured by the emphasis in moral philosophy on unusual cases. In IV we argue that moral theories are inadequate if they cannot describe simple needs-meeting cases. We argue that the elimination or reduction of need to other concepts such as value, duty, virtue or care is unsatisfactory, in which case moral theories that make those concepts fundamental will have to be revised. In conclusion, we suggest that if moral theories cannot be revised to accommodate needs, they may have to be replaced with a fully needs-based theory.

Needs-centered ethical theory

In ordinary moral life we encounter needs frequently. We respond to the needs of others and expect other people to respond to our own needs all the time in a way that is common and unremarkable. We do this in so unthinking a manner, that the central place of needs in our moral lives has tended to go unnoticed. More attention should be paid by moral philosophers to the role that the concept of need can and should play in moral theory. The map metaphor for theories may be useful here.1 If the task of moral philosophy is to map a moral life, then, when we look closely at the landscape of a life, we must notice that a central feature on the landscape is the phenomenon of need: living beings in need, and in the case of moral agents, their recognitions of and responses to needs. If this is right, any general purpose map we make will have to delineate the patterns of moral significance created by the phenomenon of need, if it is to be useful. A general purpose map, however, which does not show the position and significance of needs, is as inadequate as a real general-purpose map of an area which omits representations of such things as the position and scale of water features, or boundaries which affect rights of access. Of course, we sometimes use maps with a limited purpose, and so we can imagine a context in which a waterless map might be useful. But where the purpose of a map is to help us find our way about, such a map would fail us at critical points. We would have nothing to guide what we said or did.

The Difference Principle, Equality of Opportunity, and Cosmopolitan Justice

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.

Meeting needs and business obligations: An argument for the libertarian skeptic

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.

Is active recruitment of health workers really not guilty of enabling harm or facilitating wrongdoing

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: 1. 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. 2. 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. 3. There are some important problems with the empirical studies cited such that they do not provide support for Hidalgos argument. I begin with the case for (1). 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 …

What do we owe others as a matter of global justice and does national membership matter

David Miller offers us a sophisticated account of how we can reconcile global obligations and duties to co‐nationals. In this article I focus on four weaknesses with his account such as the following two. First, there remains considerable unclarity about the strength of the positive duties we have to non‐nationals and how these measure up relative to other positive duties, such as the ones Miller believes we have to co‐nationals to implement civil, political, or social rights. Second, just how responsibilities for enacting our global commitments will be assigned still needs further development. A unifying theme of my criticisms concerns Miller’s account of how we are to mediate responsibilities to fellow‐nationals and the partiality we may defensibly show co‐nationals. In the final section I sketch an alternative way of conceptualizing our duties to fellow‐nationals and duties to non‐nationals, which can give more systematic advice about the partiality we may defensibly show co‐nationals.

Abusive Tax Avoidance and Responsibilities of Tax Professionals

Abstract Abusive tax avoidance reduces the effectiveness and equity of fiscal institutions, and hence contributes to significant levels of deprivation in both developed and developing countries. In the first part of this paper, we outline the main reasons for the existence and scale of abusive tax avoidance, with emphasis on factors that exacerbate the problem in the developing world. However, our main project in this paper is normative. We argue that tax professionals, such as lawyers, accountants and financial advisors, have strong obligations to help remedy the deprivation caused by abusive tax avoidance. To make our case, we present three connective grounds that serve as criteria for remedial responsibilities: causal contribution, benefit and capacity to assist. Although these criteria sometimes pull in different directions, when all three converge there are especially strong grounds for assigning responsibilities to the relevant set of actors. Applying this convergence approach, we demonstrate that tax professionals contribute majorly to abusive tax avoidance, benefit greatly from its persistence, and have significant capacities to reduce its extent. One result of this analysis is that tax professionals—especially large accountancy, legal and securities firms—ought to do much more to address tax avoidance than merely comply with existing legislation. We also argue that these responsibilities are consistent with, indeed required by, widely accepted standards of professional integrity.

Some future directions for global justice

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 (including the notions of complicity, exploitation, and corruption). In addition, I draw attention to the ways in which a journal such as this one could facilitate a number of important dialogue networks.

Justice, infectious diseases and globalization.

The ethical importance of infectious diseases The ethical importance of infectious diseases partly relates to the fact that their consequences are almost unrivalled. Historically they have caused more morbidity and mortality than any other cause, including war (Price-Smith, 2001). The Black Death eliminated one-third of the European population in just a few years during the mid-fourteenth century (Ziegler, 1969); the 1918 flu epidemic killed between 20 and 100 million people (Crosby, 2003); tuberculosis (TB) killed a billion people during the past two centuries (Ryan, 1992); and smallpox killed between 300 and 500 million people during the twentieth century alone – i.e. three times more than were killed by all the wars of that period (Oldstone, 1998). Second, because the public health measures used to control them sometimes involve infringement of widely accepted individual rights and liberties, infectious diseases raise difficult philosophical questions about how to strike a balance between the goal to protect the greater good of public health and the goal to protect individual rights and liberties. Quarantine and travel restrictions, for example, violate the right to freedom of movement. Other public health measures – such as contact tracing, the notification of third parties, and the reporting of the health status of individuals to authorities – can interfere with the right to privacy. Mandatory treatment and vaccination, finally, conflicts with the right to informed consent.