38 research outputs found
The Practice-Independence of Intergenerational Justice
The question whether distributive justice is at bottom practice-dependent or practice-independent has received much attention in recent years. I argue that the problem of intergenerational justice resolves this dispute in favour of practice-independence. Many believe that we owe more to our descendants than leaving them a world in which they can merely lead minimally decent lives. This thought is particularly convincing given the fact that it is us who determine to a significant extent what this future world will look like. However, no practices that would trigger distributive obligations exist between distant generations. Thus, if we have to leave more than a minimum for future generations, we cannot conceive of distributive justice in terms of the justification of ongoing social interactions. Rather we have to think of the entire concept as an idea based on persons’ legitimate interests and capacity for well-being, and which abstracts from participation in particular practices.</jats:p
Global egalitarianism as a practice-independent ideal
In this thesis I defend the principle of global egalitarianism. According to this
idea most of the existing detrimental inequalities in this world are morally
objectionable. As detrimental inequalities I understand those that are not to the
benefit of the worst off people and that can be non-wastefully removed.
To begin with, I consider various justifications of the idea that only those
detrimental inequalities that occur within one and the same state are morally
objectionable. I identify Thomas Nagel’s approach as the most promising
defence of this traditional position. However, I also show that Nagel’s argument
does not even justify the elimination of detrimental inequalities (that is to say:
egalitarian duties of justice) within states. A discussion of the concept of
political legitimacy rather shows that egalitarian justice is not a necessary
condition of the justifiability of the exercise of coercive political power.
I, then, consider other, more Rawlsian approaches to the question of
detrimental inequalities. These views appear more plausible than Nagel’s
position and argue that egalitarian duties also arise in certain international
contexts. But also these more global theories of distributive justice suffer from shortcomings. Since they make the application of duties of justice dependent on
the existence of social practices they cannot adequately account for the justified
interests of non-participants that are affected by these practices.
The counter-intuitive implications of practice-dependent theories lead me
to investigate the plausibility of a theory that does not limit justice to existing
practices and that argues for the inherent value of equality. This theory is global
egalitarianism. I defend global egalitarianism by debilitating three objections
that opponents of this idea frequently (but often not clearly) present in the
relevant literature.
Finally I also address two particular objections to the idea that global
egalitarian duties are institutionalizable with the help of coercive global
authorities
The Socio-Economic Argument for the Human Right to Internet Access
This paper argues that Internet access should be recognised as a human right because it has become practically indispensable for having adequate opportunities to realise our socio-economic human rights. This argument is significant for a philosophically informed public understanding of the Internet and because it provides the basis for creating new duties. For instance, accepting a human right to Internet access minimally requires guaranteeing access for everyone and protecting Internet access and use from certain objectionable interferences (e.g. surveillance, censorship, online abuse). Realising this right thus requires creating an Internet that is crucially different from the one we currently have. The argument thus has wide-ranging implications
Medical Brain Drain: Free-Riding, Exploitation, and Global Justice
In her debate with Michael Blake, Gillian Brock sets out to justify emigration restrictions on medical workers from poor states on the basis of their free-riding on the public investment that their states have made in them in form of a publicly funded education. For this purpose, Brock aims to isolate the question of emigration restrictions from the larger question of responsibilities for remedying global inequalities. I argue that this approach is misguided because it is blind to decisive factors at play in the problem of medical brain drain and consequently distorts the different responsibilities this problem generates. Brock’s strategy, if successful, would effectively lead to punishing emigrating workers from poor states for the free-riding and exploitation that is committed by affluent states – which is a counter-intuitive result