Equality And Global Justice

Cosmopolitanism has become one of the main topics of political philosophy. This paper focuses on its conception as a theory of international distributive justice: cosmopolitan egalitarianism. The aim of this study is twofold: (a) to overview the conceptions of cosmopolitanism that stem from egalitarian premises and; (b) to consider if this conception was able to displace Rawls's theory is the paradigmatic theory of distributive justice. To do so, I will focus on Thomas Pogge and Peter Singer's proposals on ending global poverty and consider some of the practical and theoretical challenges to egalitarian cosmopolitanism. Finally, I will assess if such approaches have managed to set a new starting point for theorists of distributive justice.

Prolegomena, 2010

Cosmopolitans hold that our duties of distributive justice to others do not stop at borders. Darrel Moellendorf is among those who defend the view that principles of distributive justice are applicable beyond borders. He suggests as a principle of international justice the global difference principle, which allows inequalities in the distribution of wealth and resources only if they are to the greatest advantage of the least advantaged individuals. In this paper, I try to indicate that Moellendorf's argument for the global difference principle is far from sustaining it. Instead, I argue for a minimum floor principle of distributive justice on the basis of the idea that each person ought to have an equal standard of living with respect to the fulfillment of their basic interests. I also propose the principle of contribution backed up by the principle of fair equality of opportunity, aiming to equalize background conditions of a competition for socially favored positions, as the basic principles of a complete account of global distributive justice. KEY WORDS: Cosmopolitanism, the difference principle, distributive justice, fair equality of opportunity, Moellendorf.

2010

Cosmopolitans hold that our duties of distributive justice to others do not stop at borders. Darrel Moellendorf is among those who defend the view that principles of distributive justice are applicable beyond borders. He suggests as a principle of international justice the global difference principle, which allows inequalities in the distribution of wealth and resources only if they are to the greatest advantage of the least advantaged individuals. In this paper, I try to indicate that Moellendorf’s argument for the global difference principle is far from sustaining it. Instead, I argue for a minimum floor principle of distributive justice on the basis of the idea that each person ought to have an equal standard of living with respect to the fulfillment of their basic interests. I also propose the principle of contribution backed up by the principle of fair equality of opportunity, aiming to equalize background conditions of a competition for socially favored positions, as the basic...

The Oxford Handbook of Global Justice, 2020

Many political theorists are troubled by the social and economic inequalities within a single country but they tend to accept only sufficiency principles of distributive justice at the global level. Dissatisfied with this view, some theorists argue that luck egalitarianism—the view that no one should be worse off than others through no fault or choice of one’s own—can offer the most compelling objection to global distributive inequalities. For instance, it is unfair if some have worse opportunities because of their national or civic identity since being born into a poor country is just part of a person’s “unchosen” circumstances. A potential problem with this view is that it pays little attention (if any) to the nature of the relationship that people stand to one another and as such it fails to capture some of our most fundamental concerns with distributive inequalities. This paper aims to develop and defend a conception of equality which expresses an ideal of how human relations should be conducted and argue that it applies at the global level. More specifically, it identifies three aspects of equality as a relational ideal: (1) the preservation of self-respect, (2) non-domination, and (3) fair terms of cooperation in collective endeavors, which implies (a) the terms of interactions must be free from exploitation (and there should be appropriate institutional arrangements to prevent people from being exploited by more powerful agents), and (b) each participant in the cooperative scheme is to have fair access to the benefits resulted from their cooperation.. It argues that equality is a relevant ideal in the global context because living in a global community of equals has instrumental as well as non-instrumental values: it is consistent with our status as equal moral agents and it supports our self-respect, protects freedom from domination, and promotes fair terms of transnational cooperation. By grounding global egalitarianism on the “relational” ideal of equality, my paper will therefore steer a middle course between the strong globalist view that the demands of equality apply everywhere with the same strength and the strong statist view that we should only object to inequalities among individuals living in the same society. The final section of the paper responds to a number of possible objections to this version of relational egalitarianism.

2008

2013

This article presents four models of global distributive justice: Globalism, Statism, Internationalism and Transnationalism. All of these models share the liberal-egalitarian premise that all human beings possess equal moral worth. Globalism defends the global validity of egalitarian principles of distributive justice. Statism denies this and holds that a threshold level of sufficiency is all that global distributive justice requires. Internationalism argues for distinct sets of principles of distributive justice that should regulate interactions among societies. Finally, Transnationalism claims that there is a plurality of contexts of distributive justice within and beyond the state, and that each of these contexts gives rise to separate principles of distributive justice.

Journal of Global Ethics, 2013