Humanities Core: Winter 2006

Lectures 10-1 and 10-2

 

 

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 (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 person 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.              A brief tour of distributive justice

 

a.      Libertarianism: beyond protecting natural rights to property and non-interference, society owes nothing to its members.  Coerced taxation —whether to fund benefits for the least advantaged or for “public goods” such as national defense, environmental protection, parks, roads, and so on—is theft.

 

                                                               i.      Rawls: cooperation gives each a claim to fair shares.

 

b.      Socialism: a just society must work collectively to ensure that everyone’s life goes equally well, by compensating people for any ways they suffer undeserved misfortune.

 

                                                               i.      Rawls: an equitable distribution need not be an equal one.

 

c.      Utilitarianism: distribute goods in whatever way is necessary to maximize overall happiness. 

 

                                                               i.      Rawls: the parties will not agree ahead of time to any principles that might allow them to wind up slaves.

 

VII.            Where on the U.S. political spectrum?

 

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

 

                                                             ii.      Socialists: far left on economic issues, (potentially) to the right on social issues.

 

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

 

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

 

 

VIII.         Fairness in the international context

 

a.      Agricultural subsidies

 

b.      What trade rules would be fair?  The ones representatives of each country would agree to not knowing what society they represent. 

 

c.      Like Rawls’s own “international original position” (Betiz, pp. 133-4).  For Rawls, his two principles can apply within societies without applying across them.

 

 

IX.              Beitz: Rawls’s two principles must apply globally if they apply at all.  A “global original position”: parties represent individuals and are ignorant of their nationality and citizenship.

 

a.      In this sense, Beitz accepts cosmopolitanism. 

 

X.                 Six main steps:

 

a.      STEP ONE: “the requirements of justice apply to institutions and practices…in which social activity produces relative or absolute benefits or burdens that would not exist if the social activity did not take place.”  (Betiz, p. 131)

 

 

b.      STEP TWO:

 

                                                               i.      Economic benefits and costs that would not exist if societies were isolated from one another (“autarky”).  (Beitz, pp. 145, 152)

 

                                                             ii.      These costs and benefits constitute “relative or absolute benefits and burdens.” (Beitz, p. 145-8)

 

c.      STEP THREE: In fact, there exists a “global regulative structure” (Betiz, pp. 148, 152), which includes: the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

 

d.      STEP FOUR: “Since [national] boundaries are not coextensive with the scope of social cooperation, they do mark the limit of social obligations.” (Betiz, p. 151)

 

e.      STEP FIVE: “Thus [on Rawls’s theory] the parties to the original position cannot be assumed to know that they are members of a particular national society, choosing principles of justice primarily for that society.  The veil of ignorance must extent to all matters of national citizenship….” (Betiz, p. 151)

 

f.        STEP SIX: “Assuming that Rawls’s arguments for the two principles are successful, there is no reason to think that the content of the principles would change as a result of enlarging the scope of the original position so that the principles would apply to the world as a whole.”  (Beitz, p. 151)

 

g.      CONCLUSION: So if Rawls’s two principles apply at all, they apply globally.  According to the “global difference principle,” international institutions have to be arranged so that social and economic inequalities are to the greatest possible benefit of the worst off person of the world. (Beitz, p. 152-3)

 

 

XI.              Objections?

 

a.      Challenge Rawls’s theory in the domestic case?

 

b.      More like a state of nature?

 

c.      Not just several different kinds of established social practices, but a unified structure.

 

                                                               i.      The leaders of all nations as a sort of legislature?

 

                                                             ii.      This does not take us beyond an international original position to a global one.

 

XII.            A gap between STEP FOUR and STEP FIVE.

 

a.      Beitz’s cosmopolitanism: not a conclusion, but a premise.

 

b.      Diogenes, 4th Century B.C.: “I am neither Athenian nor Greek, I am a citizen of the world.”

 

c.      An alternative?