1,721,101 research outputs found
Reciprocity, Equality and International Justice
No full textIn this article I criticize a prominent account for resisting the extension of egalitarian justice to global politics. For Andrea Sangiovanni it is the reciprocity requirement generated by the provision of basic public goods that grounds egalitarian justice. Such basic public goods provision is absent internationally and this entails that egalitarian justice is only appropriate between citizens of the same political community. This article highlights the problematic empirical assumptions on which Sangiovanni's work builds. It proposes a more ample class of basic public goods necessary to act on a plan of life and maintains that whatever list we adopt, in a globalized world, basic public goods provision is often dependent on the international system. It goes on to suggest that the role of equality beyond borders is an important topic not only for relations between persons at the global level but also for inter-state interactions and that what we really should be worried about is the instrumental effects that inequality has when it comes to issues concerning poverty reduction and the shape of international regimes and institutions. © 2013 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
The just price and the gains from exchange
No full textThe paper explores a general framework for thinking about the idea of the just price. The approach is grounded in a basic aspect of the nature of exchange, namely, that the latter usually occurs when both parties believe they will be better off as a result. Put differently, an exchange is normally performed because both parties stand to gain something from it. The distributive question that arises from this observation is how one ought to divide such gains. The connection with the idea of the just price is not necessarily an obvious one, yet it is relatively straightforward. Assuming that an exchange involves money (or any unit of account), the price at which two agents transact will correspond to a specific division of the gains from the transaction. Conversely, any specification of a fair division of the gains from exchange individuates a specific price as the just or fair price. The paper analyzes the main features of this approach to the determination of the just price, explains one of its main virtues, defends it against an alleged weakness and criticizes as inadequate two of its traditional interpretations. The upshot of the discussion is that while the idea that the just price of a transaction depends on how the latter divides the gains from exchange does not suffer from general flaws and is in fact characterized by an important good making feature, the two principal ways in which it has been deployed are implausible
On Constitutional Democracy and Robust International Law
No full texthttps://doi.org/10.1017/S089267941600042
A Realistic Utopia: Global Justice and Public Justification
Full text linkIn the last three decades, liberal political philosophy has been increasingly concerned with the nature and extent of the moral responsibilities of members of different political communities to each other. John Rawls contributed to this debate in his final book, The Law of Peoples (LP). In LP, Rawls refused to extend his account of domestic distributive justice to international politics and argued that some non-liberal (yet decent) peoples can be membersin good standing of the international community. Many of Rawls’ critics maintain that this evidences a double standard, and accuse LP of being an incoherent extension of Rawls’ political philosophy to global politics. In this book I show that the opposite is true. I start by underlining the main discontinuities between Rawls’ accounts of domestic and international justice. I then show that these discontinuities can be explained by tracing the evolution of the idea of public justifi- cation in Rawls’ work. Rawls’ two theories of justice are the application of the same idea – public justification – in different political contexts
Should We Tolerate Benevolent Absolutisms?
Full text linkIn this paper, I argue that the real problem with Rawls’s view of international toleration is that, properly understood, it seems not too inclusive, but not inclusive
enough. I examine the standing of what Rawls calls “benevolent absolutisms.” According to Rawls, their lack of internal mechanisms of collective will-formation means that benevolent absolutisms cannot be seen as members in good standing of the Society of Peoples. I claim that if we accept the best reconstruction of Rawls’s argument for tolerating decent peoples, then we should tolerate benevolent absolutisms as well
Rawls' duty of assistance: A defence and re-elaboration
Full text linkThis paper examines Rawls' duty of assistance (DOA). It argues that some of the major criticisms that have been levelled against the DOA are based on a mischaracterisation of Rawls' position in LP. The paper also argues that what many of Rawls' critics have failed to appreciate is not how little Rawls' DOA asks well-ordered peoples to do, but rather how much. The paper suggest that, taken at face value, the latter is in fact is too much to ask and much more than we can realistically achieve or allow ourselves to attempt. Finally, the paper provides a sketch of how to reconceptualise the DOA in a way that both addresses the aforementioned objection and, at the same time, is compatible with LP's general framework
Introduction: Globalization, Global Politics and the Cosmopolitan Plateau
No full textThis is a substantive introduction to a large edited collection containing 15 chapters. The introduction provides an overview of the field of global political theory. It highlights the almost universal commitment to moral cosmopolitanism. It then analyses the relevance fo globalization for global political theory. And, finally, highlights aspects of the field in which more work needs to be done
No Country for Old (Poor) Men: Fairness and Public Pensions
No full textPublic pensions are a ‘social technology’ at the heart of most welfare states. The basic goal pursued by a public pension system is to make sure that individuals do not outlive their savings. An increasing number of states have recently moved to a system that matches individuals’ contributions over their working lives to a specific stream of revenue during their retirement years (i.e. defining contributions rather than benefits). As a result, intragenerational fairness concerns have started to become more relevant. In this article, we shall claim that, irrespective of how one conceptualises the welfare state, most public pension systems violate actuarial fairness and any plausible account of distributive justice, and that they do so for structural reasons. Studying the Italian case, we offer insights on this regressive redistributive effect, based on regional data, and offer an implicit policy solution to obviate this problem
Legitimacy, metacoordination and context-dependence
Full text linkThis paper argues that the process of deriving legitimacy criteria for political institutions ought to be sensitive to features of the political context in which that process is to occur. The paper builds on Allen Buchanan's 'Metacoordination View' of legitimacy, which we explicate in the first section. While sympathetic to Buchanan's practical approach, we believe the idea of a metacoordination process to be underspecified across two dimensions, which we explain in the second section: (i) constituency and (ii) normativity. Both dimensions admit of differing specifications. In the third section, we suggest that how best to fill in these dimensions in any one instance depends upon the political context in which the metacoordination process is to occur. We highlight three relevant elements of a political decision context - criticality, institutional time point, and motivational landscape - and illustrate their significance by way of reference, respectively, to the World Health Organization, the European Economic and Monetary Union, and the Bank of International Settlements. The 'context-dependence' of the metacoordination process, and therefore of legitimacy, entails the possibility that institutions that are similar, even identical, in terms of their nature and function may nevertheless be held to differing legitimacy criteria in differing political contexts
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