Humanities Core: Winter 2005
Lecture 9-2

I. Some facts about poverty and inequality in our world.

a. In 1999, of roughly 6 billion people in the world, 1.2 billion lived in severe poverty. Another 2.8 billion lived just above the international poverty line. (United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report, 2002, PDF, p. 17, at http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2002/en/ )

b. Each day over 20,000 people die by causes related to extreme poverty (The New York Times, Feb. 27, 2005, citing the leading development economist, Jeffery Sachs, The End of Poverty (Penguin Press, 2005), [foreword by Bono]).

c. The three richest billionaires together have more income than all of the least developed countries and their 600 million people combined (UNDP, Human Development Report 1999, p. 3).

d. In 1997, the income gap between the fifth of the world’s people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 71 to 1. In 1990, it was 60 to 1, in 1960, 30 to 1 (UNDP, Human Development Report 1999, p. 3).

e. In 2002, the U.S. gave .011% of GDP. The second largest economy, Japan, gave .35%, over twice as much as a percentage of GDP, and significantly more in absolute dollars. The most giving country, Denmark, gave only .99%.

II. Beitz: existing poverty and inequality is neither simply unfortunate nor simply a humanitarian problem but a social injustice. Justice requires institutions that now exist on the global scene to dramatically change how they distribute wealth and other social goods across different societies.

III. Nothing is wrong with existing global poverty and inequality.

a. Ethical Egoism: each person only has reason to promote his or her own interests; we owe nothing to others.

b. The Near and Dear View: we owe things not only to ourselves but also to our friends and families, but we nothing to everyone else.

c. The Zealous Patriot View: we owe things to ourselves, to our families and friends, and also to our compatriots; but we owe nothing to foreigners.

i. The Duty of Easy Rescue: when you can prevent death or serious injury to another at small or reasonable cost to yourself, you are morally required to do so.

IV. In what sense is every human being morally important?

a. Utilitarianism: the right action or just policy is that among the available options which maximizes the greatest happiness, for the greatest number of people.

i. J. S. Mill: the best way to maximize overall happiness is for members of each society to take better care of their fellow members than of foreigners.

ii. Beitz (p. 127): “for the utilitarian…the distinction between obligations of humanitarian aid and obligations of social justice is a second-order distinction.”

b. Beitz: there is a fundamental difference between social justice and mere charity or mutual aid.

i. Isolated societies: distributive justice within each society, charity or mutual aid across them.

ii. Since the world is effectively a single scheme of social cooperation, any principles of justice which apply within societies must also be applied across them.

V. John Rawls’s theory of justice

a. Beitz: because societies are not self-sufficient but now substantially interdependent, Rawls’s “two principles” of justice must apply globally, if they apply at all.

i. Extension not independent defense

b. Major institutions structure how well any particular person can do over the course of his or her life.

c. The “original position”: parties decide on governing principles from behind “the veil of ignorance,” not knowing their actual talents, intelligence, looks, gender, race, preferences, or ideas of the good life.

i. The two principles

1. Each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive total system of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar system of liberty for all.

2. Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both: (a) to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged…[the “difference principle”] and (b) attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity. (Beitz, p. 129)

a. It is not enough merely if “a rising tide lifts all boats,” that is, if great inequality is of some net benefit to the worst off person.

VI. Other standard views of distributive justice

a. Libertarianism: You have a right not to be interfered with by others, and a duty not to interfere with them. You also have the right to acquire property, either by original appropriation of un-owned things, or by free exchanges with other people. Beyond this you owe nothing to others as a matter of justice. Government is only justified as a private protection agency. Forced taxation is theft.

b. Socialism: a just society must collectively ensure that everyone’s life goes equally well, by eliminating or reducing the influence of undeserved bad luck or misfortune on people’s fates.

c. Utilitarianism: no limits on how far individuals can be sacrificed for the greater happiness of others.

VII. The political spectrum in the U.S.?

a. Libertarians: far right on economic policy, far left on “social issues” which concern individual liberty.

b. Socialists: far left on economic issues, (potentially) far right on social issues.

c. Utilitarians: center-left on social issues, center-right on economic policy.

d. Rawlsians: center-left on social issues, center-left on economic policy.