Is Global Poverty a Moral Problem for Citizens of Affluent Societies?
The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 1:229-234 (2007)
| Abstract | The gap between the affluent and the global poor has increased during the past few decades, whether it is measured in terms of private consumption, income, or wealth. One would expect that severe poverty in a world of abundance would constitute a moral challenge to the affluent, but in fact it hardly seems a serious ethical concern. Affluent citizens seem so little morally concerned with global poverty. However, the most promising approach seems to be to explore and divulge factually and conceptually the numerous ways in which the affluent are implicated in a wholly unjust world of growing inequality. Changing people's moral perception is an arduous task and it is to be expected that affluent people will only gradually come to morally question their comfortable lives, at least in the absence of environmental or political disasters that might occur in the future. The immense human suffering at stake makes it a duty for moral philosophers to continue to work at and even increase their efforts towards this task | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesMakoto Usami (2005). World Poverty and Justice Beyond Borders. Tokyo Institute of Technology Department of Social Engineering Discussion Paper (05-04):1-18.
Gerhard Øverland (forthcoming). 602 and One Dead: On Contribution to Global Poverty and Liability to Defensive Force. European Journal of Philosophy.
Thom Brooks (2007). Punishing States That Cause Global Poverty. William Mitchell Law Review 33 (2):519-32.
Christian Barry & Gerhard Øverland (2012). The Feasible Alternatives Thesis: Kicking Away the Livelihoods of the Global Poor. Politics, Philosophy and Economics 11 (1):97-119.
Christopher Lowry & Udo Schüklenk (2009). Two Models in Global Health Ethics. Public Health Ethics 2 (3):276-284.
Alex Voorhoeve (2006). Is Poverty Our Problem? Introduction to the Forum on World Poverty and the Duty of Assistance. The Philosophers' Magazine 36:46-49.
Shelley Wilcox (2009). The Open Borders Debate on Immigration. Philosophy Compass 4 (5):813-821.
Makoto Usami (2013). Global Justice: From Responsibility to Rights. Discussion Paper, No. 2013–02, Department of Social Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology:1-12.
Thomas W. Pogge (2007). "Assisting" the Global Poor. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 13:189-215.
Carl Knight (2008). A Pluralistic Approach to Global Poverty. Review of International Studies 34 (4):713-33.
Peter F. Omonzejele (2010). Global Principles, Local Obligations: Reproductive Ethics in Affluent Societies and Developing Countries. Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics 16 (1):32-47.
Todd Calder (2010). Shared Responsibility, Global Structural Injustice, and Restitution. Social Theory and Practice 36 (2):263-290.
Paul G. Harris (1997). Affluence, Poverty, and Ecology: Obligation, International Relations, and Sustainable Development. Ethics and the Environment 2 (2):121 - 138.
Scott Wisor (2012). Poverty and Poverty Alleviation. In M. Juergensmeyer & H. K. Anheier (eds.), Encyclopedia of Global Studies. Sage.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-12-02Total downloads6 ( #145,547 of 549,066 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,185 of 549,066 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
