Online research in philosophy

Noam Chomsky's Poverty of the Stimulus Argument is one of the most famous and controversial arguments in the study of language and the mind. Though widely endorsed by linguists, the argument has met with much resistance in philosophy. Unfortunately, philosophical critics have often failed to fully appreciate the power of the argument. In this paper, we provide a systematic presentation of the Poverty of the Stimulus Argument, clarifying its structure, content, and evidential base. We defend the argument against (...) a variety of philosophical criticisms, new and old, and argue that the Poverty of the Stimulus Argument continues to deserve its guiding role in the study of language and the mind. (shrink)

The problem of global poverty has reached terrifying proportions. Since the end of the Cold War, ordinary deaths from starvation and preventable diseases amount to approximately 250 million people, most of them children. Thomas Pogge argues that wealthy states have a responsibility to help those in severe poverty. This responsibility arises from the foreseeable and avoidable harm the current global institutional order has perpetrated on poor states. Pogge demands that wealthy states eradicate global poverty not merely because (...) they have the resources, but because they share responsibility for its continuation. For Pogge, global poverty is more than a wrong imposed on the poor: it is a violation of human rights and a crime. In this paper, I critically examine Pogge's claim that global poverty is a crime. My aim is to demonstrate that Pogge's conclusions do not follow from his arguments. That is, if affluent states have a negative duty to assist those in severe poverty, their duty is not absolute because they are not fully responsible for this poverty. Moreover, if global poverty is one of the greatest crimes against humanity, then it seems inappropriate at best to champion proposals, pace Pogge, that lets the guilty parties walk free. (shrink)

This paper provides an introductory discussion of questions about three moral duties in the context of global poverty: the duty to aid; the duty not to harm; and the duty to promote just global institutions.

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction William A. Galston and Peter H. Hoffenberg; 2. Global poverty and uneven development Sakiko Fukuda-Parr; 3. The karma of poverty: a Buddhist perspective David R. Loy; 4. Poverty and morality in Christianity Kent A. Van Til; 5. Classical liberalism, poverty, and morality Tom G. Palmer; 6. Confucian perspectives on poverty and morality Peter Nosco; 7. Poverty and morality: a feminist perspective Nancy J. Hirschmann; 8. Hinduism and poverty (...) Arvind Sharma; 9. The problem of poverty in Islamic ethics Sohail H. Hashmi; 10. Jewish perspectives on poverty Noam Zohar; 11. Liberal egalitarianism and poverty Darrel Moellendorf; 12. Marxism and poverty Andrew Levine; 13. Poverty and natural law Stephen J. Pope; 14. Afterword Michael Walzer. (shrink)

One relatively straightforward way in which academics could have more impact on global poverty is by doing more to help people make wise decisions about issues relevant to such poverty. Academics could do this by conducting appropriate kinds of research on those issues and sharing what they have learned with the relevant decision makers in accessible ways. But aren’t academics already doing this? In the case of many of those issues, I think the appropriate answer would be that (...) they could do so much better. As an illustration, I examine the academic input into one decision about an issue concerning global poverty in some detail in this paper. I argue that that input has been seriously deficient, and suggest some ways in which it might be improved. Building on this discussion, I then formulate two questions that can be applied to any such decision, answers to which would indicate the quality of the input academics are currently providing. In cases where that input is deficient, and the decision in question an important one, I suggest that academics consider organising themselves in ways that will improve that input. I finish by briefly discussing how Academics Stand Against Poverty might help them do so. (shrink)

Global poverty measurement is important. It is used to allocate scarce resources, evaluate progress, and assess existing projects, policies, and institutional designs. But given the diversity of ways in which poverty is conceived, how can we settle on a conception and measure that can be used for interpersonal and inter-temporal global comparison? -/- This book lays out the key contemporary debates in poverty measurement, and provides a new analytical framework for thinking about poverty conception and measurement. (...) Rather than trying to find some essential meaning of poverty, the author recommends explicitly reflecting on the purposes served by the concept and the values that do and should inform our conceptions and measures. -/- After reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of five competing conceptions of poverty and their corresponding measures, the book concludes with specific recommendations for the future. Poverty measurement should be developed through a process of public reason that gives weight to the voices of those individuals who are most marginalized and deprived. The author suggests new values, desiderata, and candidate indicators that should be used in a pro-poor poverty measure. (shrink)

This article questions the use of immigration as a tool to counter global poverty. It argues that poor people have a human right to stay in their home state, which entitles them to receive development assistance without the necessity of migrating abroad. The article thus rejects a popular view in the philosophical literature on immigration which holds that rich states are free to choose between assisting poor people in their home states and admitting them as immigrants when fulfilling duties (...) to assist the global poor. Since the human right to stay is entailed by values that feature prominently in the philosophical debate on immigration, the article further contends that participants in that debate have particular reason to reject the popular ‘choice view’ and endorse the alternative position presented in the article. (shrink)

Global poverty is a huge problem in today's world. This survey article seeks to be a first guide to those who are interested in, but relatively unfamiliar with, the main issues, positions and arguments in the contemporary philosophical discussion of global poverty. The article attempts to give an overview of four distinct and influential normative positions on global poverty. Moreover, it seeks to clarify, and put into perspective, some of the key concepts and issues that take center (...) stage in the philosophical discussion of global poverty. The four positions to be discussed are labeled the Maximalist Position, the Minimalist Position, Intermediate Position I and Intermediate Position II. After an account of these four distinct positions, we turn, in the conclusion, to a discussion of what role empirical sciences such as economics and political science should play in normative considerations about global poverty. (shrink)

I provide a philosophical analysis of the claim that ICTs are necessary preconditions for the eradication of poverty. What are the links between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and poverty? I first define technology and then give a brief depiction of ICTs. Thereafter I define poverty and give a brief explanation of its context and causes. Next I discuss the relationship between poverty and ICTs in three paradigm cases: [i] the role of ICTs in poor societies, (...) [ii] the effect of poor ICT knowledge and skill of individuals in highly developed technological societies, and [iii] the impact of impoverished ICT knowledge and skills on the rich, powerful, and intelligent ones in society. I propose a procedure for decision making about the appropriation of ICTs by individuals and societies. I assess the claim that both access to ICTs and effective use of them are preconditions for the eradication of poverty. (shrink)

The reluctance to eradicate poverty shown by citizens and governments of many modern constitutional democracies is puzzling. If poverty threatens societies in various ways, why would many countries with a strongly agreed upon system of democratic governance fail so painfully to find the commitment and appropriate action to eradicate poverty? In this essay I want to investigate the discordance between poverty and democracy. I will first briefly articulate the broad underlying values of modern constitutional democracies. Then (...) I will analyze the ways in which poverty violates the underlying values of democracy. Next I will try to explain why poverty is still widespread in democracies, despite the multiple ways it violates democratic values. Finally I will look at the implications of my findings in terms of the functions of democratic values in contemporary democracies. (shrink)

Poverty is one of the most serious moral issues of our time that does not yet get the appropriate response it deserves. This book first gives an in depth moral analysis and evaluation of the complex manifestations of poverty. It then offers a series of ethical reasons to motivate everyone to engage in the struggle to eradicate poverty. -/- Social science research results are synthesized into a definition and explanation of poverty that provide proper background for (...) moral evaluation. Poverty is defined as a many-faceted phenomenon consisting of tightly interwoven characteristics that play out in a complexity of manners depending on the unique circumstances in individual situations. -/- The following series of claims are defended in the book: (1) Poverty is a complex phenomenon that can have a wide ranging series of negative impacts on individuals and societies; (2) Poverty must be understood from a variety of ethical perspectives and through different metaphors; (3) Poverty and its consequences undermine the dignity of its sufferers and thus must be eradicated for its inhuman consequences; (4) Poverty affects all the networks humans are involved in and thus diminishes the quality of life of all human beings; (5) We must evaluate all possible dimensions of the phenomenon of poverty in terms of values of ethics and justice generally shared in contemporary liberal democracies. (6) Poverty can best be addressed through collective human action after re-imagining the goal and purpose of political institutions and a reformulation of the purposes aid ought to be for. (shrink)

Plato’s views on the significance of poverty and wealth in The Republic challenge us to rethink the role and position assigned to wealth in contemporary society. These ideas on poverty and wealth play an important role in shaping the central arguments of the Republic. The themes and views expressed in the opening dialogue of Plato’s Republic (328b - 331d) serve to introduce some of the core ideas of the Republic. I start with an analysis of the opening dialogue (...) and then I proceed to discuss the significance of Plato’s views on poverty and wealth in the context of the Republic. Through this analysis I want to establish the claim that Plato argues for the following: [1] that justice, in the sense of the morality of individuals and societies, is far more important than the acquisition of wealth, [2] that moderate wealth is important for its function to enable humans to live a moral life, [3] that poverty and excessive wealth have negative consequences for both individuals and societies, and [4] that desiring and possessing excessive wealth disrupts and destroys moral integrity and internal harmony in individuals and societies. (shrink)

United States will question a prospective loan early in the preparation process, And during final deliberation of a loan proposal by the Bank's executive board, it will make comments designed to draw attention to general matters of ...

Thomas Pogge has argued that typical citizens of affluent nations participate in an unjust global order that harms the global poor. This supports his conclusion that there are widespread negative institutional duties to reform the global order. I defend Pogge’s negative duty approach, but argue that his formulation of these duties is ambiguous between two possible readings, only one of which is properly confined to genuinely negative duties. I argue that this ambiguity leads him to shift illicitly between negative and (...) positive duties, and ultimately to overstate the extent of the negative ones. I also argue that recognition of this ambiguity makes it possible to draw a meaningful distinction between the relevant positive and negative duties, and that Pogge’s analysis can therefore be revised in a way that reveals substantial negative institutional duties to the global poor, albeit less extensive ones than Pogge asserts. In order to demonstrate this, I discuss two aspects of the global order that Pogge has criticized: the system of intellectual property rights in pharmaceuticals and the rights of de facto rulers to dispose of a nation’s natural resources. In each case, although I do not specify the relevant negative institutional duties precisely, I try to identify intelligible questions whose answers would reveal genuinely negative duties and show that their likely answers are distinct from the conclusions asserted by Pogge and suggested by his analysis. (shrink)

There is no doubt that freedom from severe poverty is among the most important human interests. We are physical beings who need access to safe food and water, clothing, shelter, and basic medical care in order to live well — indeed, in order to live at all.

In World Poverty and Human Rights, Thomas Pogge argues that the global rich have a duty to eradicate severe poverty in the world. The novelty of Pogges approach is to present this demand as stemming from basic commands which are negative rather than positive in nature: the global rich have an obligation to eradicate the radical poverty of the global poor not because of a norm of beneficence asking them to help those in need when they can (...) at little cost to themselves, but because of their having violated a principle of justice not to unduly harm others by imposing on them a coercive global order that makes their access to the objects of their human right to subsistence insecure. In this paper, I claim that although Pogge is right in arguing that negative duties are crucial in an account of global justice, he is wrong in saying that they are the only ones that are crucial. Harming the global poor by causing their poverty provides a sufficient but not a necessary condition for the global rich to have a duty of justice to assist them. After engaging in a critical analysis of Pogges argument, I conclude by suggesting the need for a robust conception of cosmopolitan solidarity that includes positive duties of assistance which are not mere duties of charity, but enforceable ones of justice. (shrink)

With regard to the problem of world poverty, libertarian theories of corrective justice emphasize negative duties and the idea of responsibility whereas utilitarian theories of help concentrate on positive duties based on the capacity of the helper. Thomas Pogge has developed a revised model of compensation that entails positive obligations that are generated by negative duties. He intends to show that the affluent are violating their negative duties to ensure that their conduct will not harm others: They are contributing (...) to and profiting from an unjust global order. But the claim that negative duty generated positive obligations are more acceptable than positive duties is contestable. I examine whether Henry Shue’s model that is integrating negative duties and positive duties is more convincing concerning the foundation of positive duties to protect others. I defend the idea that there are positive duties of justice. This approach can integrate an allocation of positive duties via responsibility and maintain the advantage of an independent foundation of positive duties. (shrink)

Do we violate human rights when we cooperate with and impose a global institutional order that engenders extreme poverty? Thomas Pogge argues that by shaping and enforcing the social conditions that foreseeably and avoidably cause global poverty we are violating the negative duty not to cooperate in the imposition of a coercive institutional order that avoidably leaves human rights unfulfilled. This article argues that Pogge's argument fails to distinguish between harms caused by the global institutions themselves and harms (...) caused by the domestic policies of particular states and collective action problems for which collective responsibility cannot be assigned. The article also argues that his position relies on questionable factual and theoretical claims about the impact of global institutions on poverty, and about the benefits and harms of certain features of these institutions. Participation in, and benefit from, global institutions is unlikely to constitute a violation of our negative duties towards the poor. Key Words: justice • international regimes • institutions • human rights • trade. (shrink)

A central goal of modern generative grammar has been to discover invariant properties of human languages that reflect “the innate schematism of mind that is applied to the data of experience” and that “might reasonably be attributed to the organism itself as its contribution to the task of the acquisition of knowledge” (Chomsky, 1971). Candidates for such invariances include the structure dependence of grammatical rules, and in particular, certain constraints on question formation. Various “poverty of stimulus” (POS) arguments suggest (...) that these invariances reflect an innate human endowment, as opposed to common experience: Such experience warrants selection of the grammars acquired only if humans assume, a priori, that selectable grammars respect substantive constraints. Recently, several researchers have tried to rebut these POS arguments. In response, we illustrate why POS arguments remain an important source of support for appeal to a priori structure-dependent constraints on the grammars that humans naturally acquire. (shrink)

I argue that existing views in the political equality debate are inadequate. I propose an alternative approach to equality and argue its superiority to the competing approaches. I apply the approach to some issues in global justice relating to global poverty and to the inability of some countries to develop as they would like. In this connection I discuss institutions of international trade, sovereign debt and global reserves and I focus particularly on the WTO, IMF and World Bank.

Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction: The complexity of the debate on global justice -- Part I: Beyond Global Poverty -- 2. Basic positive duties of justice: A contractualist defense -- 3. Negative duties and the libertarian challenge -- 4. The feasibility of global poverty eradication in nonideal circumstances -- Part II: Toward Global Equality -- 5. Humanist versus associativist accounts of global equality -- 6. A humanist defense of global equality -- 7. The feasibility (...) of global equality -- 8. Conclusion: Exploring responsibilities of global justice -- Bibliography -- Index. (shrink)

For 40 years, Peter Singer has deployed the case of the child drowning in the shallow pond to argue for greater donations in foreign aid. The persistent use of the shallow pond example in theorizing about global poverty ignores morally salient features of the real world, and ignoring such morally salient features can have a variety of harmful implications for anti-poverty work. I argue that the shallow pond example should be abandoned, and defend this claim against possible objections.

This article discusses the question of poverty and wealth in light of several theses put forward by Larry Temkin. The claim that there is a sort of cosmic injustice involved when great disparities of ability or of wealth are found. He is concerned especially about disparities that are undeserved. It is agreed that this is unfortunate, but not agreed that they are unjust in a sense that supports the imposition of rectification on anyone else. Nor is poverty typically (...) undeserved in the only really relevant sense: the poor simply do not produce enough to earn them high incomes, and probably correct incomes they derive are indeed what such efforts are worth in the circumstances. That persons with very low incomes may merit our sympathy is accepted, but sympathy leads to charity, rather than to the involuntary exploitation of the better off. The essay concludes with further observations about the relevance of free markets, and points to the iniquities of the restrictions on commerce that are the most potent source of perpetuated poverty today. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge and Andrew Kuper suggest that we should promote an ‘institutional’ solution to global poverty. They advocate the institutional solution because they think that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can never be the primary agents of justice in the long run. They provide several standard criticisms of NGO aid in support of this claim. However, there is a more serious problem for institutional solutions: how to generate enough goodwill among rich nation-states that they would be willing to commit themselves to (...) supranational institutional reforms. In the current international political climate, the implementation of such institutional reforms introduces several intractable problems, including difficulties of global coordination and enforcement. I defend the solution of NGO aid from the criticisms presented by Pogge and Kuper, and propose how it might be reformed. My main suggestion is that all practising NGOs should be required to be ‘accountable for reasonableness’ in the sense that Norman Daniels and James Sabin have outlined. (shrink)

Philosophers have postulated the existence of God to explain (I) why any contingent objects exist at all rather than nothing contingent, and (II) why the fundamental laws of nature and basic facts of the world are exactly what they are. Therefore, we ask: (a) Does (I) pose a well-conceived question which calls for an answer? and (b) Can God's presumed will (or intention) provide a cogent explanation of the basic laws and facts of the world, as claimed by (II)? We (...) shall address both (a) and (b). To the extent that they yield an unfavourable verdict, the afore-stated reasons for postulating the existence of God are undermined. As for question (I), in 1714, G. W. Leibniz posed the Primordial Existential Question (hereafter ‘PEQ’): ‘Why is there something contingent at all, rather than just nothing contingent?’ This question has two major presuppositions: (1) A state of affairs in which nothing contingent exists is indeed genuinely possible (‘the Null Possibility’), the notion of nothingness being both intelligible and free from contradiction; and (2) De jure, there should be nothing contingent at all, and indeed there would be nothing contingent in the absence of an overriding external cause (or reason), because that state of affairs is ‘most natural’ or ‘normal’. The putative world containing nothing contingent is the so-called ‘Null World’. As for (1), the logical robustness of the Null Possibility of there being nothing contingent needs to be demonstrated. But even if the Null Possibility is demonstrably genuine, there is an issue: Does that possibility require us to explain why it is not actualized by the Null World, which contains nothing contingent? And, as for (2), it originated as a corollary of the distinctly Christian precept (going back to the second century) that the very existence of any and every contingent entity is utterly dependent on God at any and all times. Like (1), (2) calls for scrutiny. Clearly, if either of these presuppositions of Leibniz's PEQ is ill founded or demonstrably false, then PEQ is aborted as a non-starter, because in that case, it is posing an ill-conceived question. In earlier writings (Grünbaum [2000], p. 5), I have introduced the designation ‘SoN’ for the ontological ‘spontaneity of nothingness’ asserted in presupposition (2) of PEQ. Clearly, in response to PEQ, (2) can be challenged by asking the counter-question, ‘But why should there be nothing contingent, rather than something contingent?’ Leibniz offered an a priori argument for SoN. Yet it will emerge that a priori defences of it fail, and that it has no empirical legitimacy either. Indeed physical cosmology spells an important relevant moral: As against any a priori dictum on what is the ‘natural’ status of the universe, the verdict on that status depends crucially on empirical evidence. Thus PEQ turns out to be a non-starter, because its presupposed SoN is ill founded! Hence PEQ cannot serve as a springboard for creationist theism. Yet Leibniz and the English theist Richard Swinburne offered divine creation ex nihilo as their answer to the ill-conceived PEQ. But being predicated on SoN, their cosmological arguments for the existence of God are fundamentally unsuccessful. The axiomatically topmost laws of nature (the ‘nomology’) in a scientific theory are themselves unexplained explainors, and are thus thought to be true as a matter of brute fact. But theists have offered a theological explanation of the specifics of these laws as having been willed or intended by God in the mode of agent causation to be exactly what they are. A whole array of considerations are offered in Section 2 to show that the proposed theistic explanation of the nomology fails multiply to transform scientific brute facts into specifically explained regularities. Thus, I argue for The Poverty of Theistic Cosmology in two major respects. Why is there something rather than nothing? 1.1 Refined statement of Leibniz's Primordial Existential Question (PEQ) 1.2 Is it imperative to explain why there isn't just nothing contingent? 1.3 Must we explain why any and every de facto unrealized logical possibility is not actualized? 1.4 Is a world not containing anything contingent logically possible? 1.5 Christian doctrine as an inspiration of PEQ 1.6 Henri Bergson 1.7 A priori justifications of PEQ by Leibniz, Parfit, Swinburne and Nozick 1.7.1 Leibniz 1.7.2 Derek Parfit 1.7.3 Richard Swinburne and Thomas Aquinas vis-à-vis SoN 1.7.4 The ‘natural’ status of the world as an empirical question 1.7.5 Robert Nozick 1.8 Hypothesized psychological sources of PEQ 1.9 PEQ as a failed springboard for creationist theism: the collapse of Leibniz's and Swinburne's theistic cosmological arguments Do the most fundamental laws of nature require a theistic explanation? 2.1 The ontological inseparability of the laws of nature from the furniture of the universe 2.2 The probative burden of the theological explanation of the world's nomology 2.3 The theistic explanation of the cosmic nomology 2.4 Further major defects of the theological explanation of the fundamental laws of nature Conclusion * Editorial note: Fifty-one years ago, Professor Grünbaum published his first paper in the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, in the issue for 1953. It was entitled ‘Whitehead's Method of Extensive Abstraction’ (British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 4, pp. 215–26). The Editor wishes to acknowledge Grünbaum's extraordinary achievement in philosophy of science and in particular the debt that this journal owes to so distinguished and productive an author. This essay originated in the first two of my three Leibniz Lectures, delivered at the University of Hanover, Germany, 25–27 June 2003. (shrink)

The combination of corporate-community conflicts and oil transnational corporations' (TNCs) rhetoric about being socially responsible has meant that the issue of community development and poverty reduction have recently moved from the periphery to the heart of strategic business thinking within the Nigerian oil industry. As a result, oil TNCs have increasingly responded to this challenge by adopting partnership strategies as a means to contribute to poverty reductions in their host communities as well as secure their social licence to (...) operate. This paper critically examines the strengths and weaknesses of the different community development partnership (CDPs) initiatives employed by Shell, Exxon Mobil and Total to contribute to poverty reduction within their host communities in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. Drawing on empirical data and critical analysis, the paper argues that while the CDP initiatives by SPDC, MPN and EPNL have the potential to contribute to community development, the failure to integrate negative injunction duties into existing partnerships means that the partnerships make no difference to how oil TNCs conduct their core business operation. Consequently, CDPs have had limited positive impact on poverty reduction in the Niger Delta. The paper concludes by examining the implications of the emerging issues for partnership and poverty reduction. (shrink)

The subject of this volume presents a more difficult question: Who, if anyone, is morally responsible for acting to alleviate severe poverty? Here our convictions are less steady. Are impoverished people responsible for improving their own condition? Or are the leaders of their countries also responsible, or the leaders of rich countries, or we ourselves as individuals? When considering this question we tend to have the kinds of reactions—avoidance of the topic, brief enthusiasm, nagging guilt—that indicate that we perceive (...) several strong pulls on our reasoning, but are unsure how to order our thoughts so as to reach a firm conclusion. Here is where a philosophical account of responsibility might help. What we want to know is how to determine who, if anyone, has moral responsibility for ensuring that each person’s human right to an adequate standard of living is secured. What we seek is a general theory that will tell us how to locate responsibility for averting this type of threat to individuals’ basic well-being. (shrink)

I have two major aims in this chapter, which is philosophical in nature. One is to draw upon values that are salient in the southern African region in order to construct a novel and attractive conception of human dignity. Specifically, I articulate the idea that human beings have a dignity in virtue of their communal nature, or their capacity for what I call ‘identity’ and ‘solidarity’, which contrasts the most influential conception in the West, according to which our dignity inheres (...) in our rationality or autonomy. The second aim is to invoke this Afro-communitarian conception of human dignity in order to advance a new conception of why poverty is morally problematic and of what people, particularly states, are ethically required to do with regard to it. Common conceptions of poverty focus on it in terms of people lacking income, preference satisfaction (‘utility’) or general-purpose means (‘social primary goods’ in the Rawlsian jargon). In contrast, if what is special about human beings is our ability to commune with one another in a certain way, then the respects in which poverty can be an injustice and the ways that it must be fought must be understood in more communitarian or relational terms, which I both specify with several concrete examples in a South African context and contrast with the more dominant approaches. (shrink)

Thomas Pogge has recently defended additional ways in which to eradicate poverty from the developing world. In this article, Pogge's argument is discussed. First the premises on which Pogge relies are summarized and the logic of 'international borrowing privilege' introduced. Then it is argued that Pogge's solutions to the poverty problem would face similar difficulties to many other solutions - that is, in order to work properly they all must gain extensive international support and political willingness, which they (...) will not easily obtain. The final section looks at how the solutions might gain more support and why people tend to resist new suggestions. (shrink)

My paper defends the use of the poverty of stimulus argument (POSA) for linguistic nativism against Cowie's (1999) counter-claim that it leaves empiricism untouched. I first present the linguistic POSA as arising from a reflection on the generality of the child's initial state in comparison with the specific complexity of its final state. I then show that Cowie misconstrues the POSA as a direct argument about the character of the pld. In this light, I first argue that the data (...) Cowie marshals about the pld does not begin to suggest that the POSA is unsound. Second, through a discussion of the so-called `auxiliary inversion rule', I show, by way of diagnosis, that Cowie misunderstands both the methodology of current linguistics and the complexity of the data it is obliged to explain. (shrink)

The presentation and paper for this conference go to the heart of the relationship between globalization and poverty worldwide. Data from the United Nations reveal the dramatic increase in exports and imports from 1990 to 2004, along with the uneven economic performance/quality of life across development groupings and geographical regions. Thus, findings suggest the possibility that trade growth has failed expectations that developing countries would rise to greater levels of productivity and subsequendy reduce abject poverty. Nonetheless, the situation (...) is far from hopeless and real progress can occur with a continued movement by transnational corporations toward socially responsible human rights, proactive governmental strategies that support productive dynamism, and removal of public policies that unfairly restrict less developed nations. (shrink)

Education lies at the heart of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): ‘Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms’. However, when education is mentioned in the philosophical literature on human rights, or even within the literature on educational policy, it is usually within the context of its being treated as a specific right—as education as a human right rather than human rights education. (...) Taking rights and obligations to be intimately tied within a full human rights educational regime, I argue for the role of education in establishing and realizing freedom from poverty as a human right. The arguments for why this freedom should be considered a human right are compelling. I offer five educational moments in the human rights movement in general, and the arguments for freedom from poverty as a human right, more specifically, in my discussion of human rights education. (shrink)

Anyone familiar with The Economist knows the mantra: Free trade will ameliorate poverty by increasing growth and reducing inequality. This paper suggests that problems underlying measurement of poverty, inequality, and free trade provide reason to worry about this argument. Furthermore, the paper suggests that better evidence is necessary to establish that free trade is causing inequality and poverty to fall. Experimental studies usually provide the best evidence of causation. So, the paper concludes with a call for further (...) research into the prospects for ethically acceptable experimental testing of free trade's impact on poverty and inequality. Although the paper is unabashedly methodological, its conclusions bear on many ethical debates. Ethicists sometimes argue, for instance, that there is reason to encourage free trade because they believe free trade is decreasing poverty and inequality. Clarifying the empirical facts may not settle ethical debates but it may inform them. (shrink)

Poverty tours - actual visits as well as literary and cinematic versions - are characterized as morally controversial trips and condemned in the press as voyeuristic endeavors. In this collaborative essay, we draw from personal experience, legal expertise, and phenomenological philosophy and introduce a conceptual taxonomy that clarifies the circumstances in which observing others has been construed as an immoral use of the gaze. We appeal to this taxonomy to determine which observational circumstances are relevant to the poverty (...) tourism debate. While we do not defend all or even most poverty tourism practices, we do conclude that categorical condemnation of poverty tourism is unjustified. (shrink)

Even if together we could make poverty history, we would not all do our part. The paper presents a device that makes it more likely for everybody to do his part. This is achieved by making everybody’s contribution dependent on the other people’s commitment to contribute given that certain conditions are fulfilled. Furthermore, a device is introduced which, based on the same general idea, doubles everybody’s donation. Finally, possibilities, assumptions and limitations of such devices are addressed.

A large proportion of humankind today lives in avoidable poverty. This article examines whether affluent individuals and governments have moral duties to change this situation. It is maintained that an alternative to the familiar accounts of transdomestic distributive justice and personal ethics put forward by writers such as Peter Singer, John Rawls, and Thomas Pogge is required, since each of these accounts fails to reflect the full range of relevant considerations. A better account would give some weight to overall (...) utility, the condition of the worst off, and individual responsibility. This approach provides robust support to global poverty alleviation. (shrink)

This paper is principally devoted to comparing and contrasting poverty of stimulus arguments for innate cognitive apparatus in relation to language and in relation to folk psychology. These days one is no longer allowed to use the term ‘innate’ without saying what one means by it. So I will begin by saying what I mean by ‘innate’. Sections 2 and 3 will discuss language and theory of mind, respectively. Along the way, I will also briefly discuss other arguments for (...) innate cognitive apparatus in these areas. (shrink)

For some thirteen years now, the World Bank (‘the Bank’) has regularly reported the number of people living below an international poverty line, colloquially known as ‘$1/day’.3 Reports for the most recent year, 1998, put this number at 1,175.14 million.4 The Bank’s estimates of severe income poverty — its global extent, geographical distribution, and trend over time — are widely cited in official publications by governments and international organizations and in popular media, often in support of the view (...) that liberalization and globalization have helped to reduce poverty worldwide. For instance, the President of the World Bank recently declared: “Over the past few years, these better policies have contributed to more rapid growth in developing countries’ per capita incomes than at any point since the mid-1970s. And faster growth has meant poverty reduction: the proportion of people worldwide living in absolute poverty has dropped steadily in recent decades, from 29% in 1990 to a record low of 23% in 1998. After increasing steadily over the past two centuries, since 1980 the total number of people living in poverty worldwide has fallen by an estimated 200 million — even as the world’s population grew by 1.6 billion.”. (shrink)

Most cosmopolitans who are concerned about world poverty assume that for citizens of affluent societies, justice beyond national borders is a matter of their positive duty to provide aid to distant people suffering from severe poverty. This assumption is challenged by some authors, notably Tomas Pogge, who maintains that these citizens are actively involved in the incidence of poverty abroad and therefore neglect their negative duty of refraining from harming others. This paper examines the extent to which (...) it is pertinent to contend that citizens in economically advanced countries are morally liable for the impoverishment of a sizable population of the developing world. The contention in question can be interpreted in two nonexclusive ways. First, it might imply that historical injustices, including colonialism and slavery, contributed to both contemporary affluence in some parts of the world and poverty in others. Second, it could imply that the present global economic system, instituted and implemented by the governments of rich and powerful countries acting in the name of their citizens, is benefiting the citizens while harming the world’s disadvantaged. The author argues that the idea of reparation for historical injustices suffers from serious philosophical difficulties, including the non-identity problem presented by Derek Parfit, and thus fails to provide a satisfactory approach to the existing problem of poverty. This paper then examines the alleged liability of citizens in affluent countries, with a special reference to empirical observations on the policy process. The paper concludes by suggesting a twofold theory of global justice, which combines material, managerial, and moral assistances for a society lacking a competent government and proposes institutional reforms in the global order in order to achieve poverty reduction. (shrink)

The main thesis of the article is that one’s responsibility to render assistance is not affected by having contributed to the situation by causing harm. I examine ways in which contribution to need is morally significant. Although contribution is relevant with regard to certain features, such as questions of blame, compensation, and fair distribution of the cost of assistance, I argue that contribution should carry no weight when assessing our duty to assist people in severe need if we can do (...) so at little cost. If this is true we have reason to suspect that it is redundant to know whether or not we have in fact contributed to the need of the global poor when assessing our duty to address global poverty. (shrink)

This article offers a new reading of Heidegger's thesis of the animal in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics. Framing Heidegger's text through a brief analysis of Protagoras' genetic story of nature and of man's nature in Plato's eponymous dialogue, our reading brings out three key elements common to both texts: living nature as a normative rather than a physical order, the poverty of man's world in relation to the animal, and the attempted redemption of the latter through the acquisition (...) of Weltbildung. Staying with the way Heidegger brings out man's poverty in world in the text allows us (i) to undo once for all the oft-repeated charge of Heidegger's anthropocentric interpretation of the animal, (ii) to stage the hypothesis that philosophy and the life sciences of his day draw upon a common basic experience of the autonomy of life in relation to everything human, all-too-human, and (iii) to demonstrate the normativity and poverty of life. (shrink)

I defend economic and social rights as human rights, and as a feasible approach to addressing world poverty. I propose a modest conception of economic and social rights that includes rights to subsistence, basic health care and basic education. The second part of the paper defends these three rights. I begin by sketching a pluralistic justificatory framework that starts with abstract norms pertaining to life, leading a life, avoiding severely cruel treatment, and avoiding severe unfairness. I argue that economic (...) and social rights are not excessively burdensome on their addressees and that they are feasible worldwide in the appropriate sense. Severe poverty violates economic and social rights, and accordingly generates high-priority duties of many parties to work towards its elimination. (shrink)

Various indices are used to track poverty, development, and gender equity at the population level. Some of them—the UNDP’s Human and Gender-RelatedDevelopment Indices and the World Bank’s Poverty Index associated with the first Millennium Development Goal—have become highly influential. This paper argues that these prominent indices are deeply flawed and therefore distort our moral judgments and misguide resource allocations by governments, international agencies, and NGOs. Examination of these flaws reveals useful pointers toward developing better indices—though much interdisciplinary work (...) will be needed before sound and practicable indices are actually available. (shrink)

Poverty is one of the serious problems of the world. The problem is more severe in Africa. Eritrea is 16 years old young nation got independence from Ethiopia. The economy of the country was quite good during 1993-97. Later, however, Eritrea has been exposed numerous challenges such as drought, famines, war. As a result, the poverty has become more rampant in the country where more than 66 percent people live below poverty line. Some families live on remittances. (...) The government has taken some poverty alleviation measures, the poverty did not come down due to lack of resources and the poor implementation of the program. An attempt is made in the paper to explore the incidence of poverty. It also provides the details of poverty surveys that are conducted since independence. The paper discusses various challenges of the poverty and provides some policy implications. (shrink)

: When suggesting that we—the affluent in the developed world—are legitimate targets of defensive force due to our contribution to global poverty one is likely to be countered by one of two strategies. The first denies that we contribute to global poverty. The second seems to affirm that we contribute, and even that we have stringent contribution-based duties to address this poverty, but denies that such contribution makes forcible resistance permissible. Those in this second group employ several (...) argumentative strategies.In this paper I investigate these strategies for denying the force-related implication of contribution to poverty. I do not argue for political violence or for the permissibility of targeting the affluent, I merely investigate a conditional: if contribution to global poverty generates stringent duties to address it, then this contribution implies permission on the part of the victims to defend themselves with force, or for third parties to use force on their behalf. (shrink)

One of the most influential arguments in contemporary philosophy and cognitive science is Chomsky's argument from the poverty of the stimulus. In this response to an essay by Chandra Sripada, I defend an analogous argument from the poverty of the moral stimulus. I argue that Sripada's criticism of moral nativism appears to rest on the mistaken assumption that the learning target in moral cognition consists of a series of simple imperatives, such as "share your toys" or "don't hit (...) other children." In fact, the available evidence suggests that the moral competence of adults and even young children is considerably more complex and exhibits many characteristics of a well-developed legal code, including abstract theories of crime, tort, contract, and agency. Since the emergence of this knowledge cannot be explained by appeals to explicit instruction, or to any known processes of imitation, internalization, socialization and the like, there are grounds for concluding it may be innate. Simply put, to explain the development of intuitive jurisprudence in each individual, we must attribute unconscious knowledge and complex mental operations to her that go well beyond anything she has been taught. (shrink)

The poverty problem is chronic in the Horn of Africa. Majority of the people in the region are suffering from this problem. There are numerous factors that cause poverty in the region. The challenge of poverty reduction in the Horn should therefore address the poverty reduction issues at national, provincial and local levels. A brief survey of literature has been made to enable us understand some theories and models that are related to poverty reduction in (...) the developing economies. This paper delves the incidence of poverty in the Horn of Africa region. It identifies the major threats and challenges of the poverty. It highlights different factors that cause the poverty and provides some implications to minimize the poverty levels in the Horn region. (shrink)

A prominent defence of a market in organs from living donors says that if we truly care about people in poverty, we should allow them to sell their organs. The argument is that if poor vendors would have voluntarily decided to sell their organs in a free market, then prohibiting them from selling makes them even worse off, at least from their own perspective, and that it would be unconscionably paternalistic to substitute our judgements for individuals' own judgements about (...) what would be best for them. The author shows that this ‘Laissez-Choisir Argument’ for organ selling rests on a mistake. This is because the claim that it would be better for people in poverty to sell their organs if given the option is consistent with the claim that it would be even better for them to not have the option at all. The upshot is that objections to an organ market need not be at all paternalistic, since we need not accept that the absence of a market makes those in poverty any worse off, even from their own point of view. The author goes on to argue that there are strong theoretical and empirical reasons for believing that people in poverty would in fact be harmed by the introduction of a market for live donor organs and that the harm constitutes sufficient grounds for prohibiting a market. (shrink)

This paper contrasts biomedical and epidemiological approaches to the diagnosis and treatment of disease, and uses Collingwoods principle of the relativity of causes to show how different approaches focus on different causal factors reflecting different interests. By distinguishing between the etiology of a disease and an epidemic, the paper argues that, from an epidemiological perspective, poverty is an important causal factor in the African AIDS epidemic and that emphasizing this should not be considered incompatible with recognizing the causal necessity (...) of HIV for the AIDS disease. (shrink)

Marx for a Post-Communist Era: On Poverty, Corruption and Banality is a clear and accessible exploration of why Marx still matters today. Despite the countless autopsies on Marx that followed the collapse of the iron curtain, many argue that Marxist ideas are as relevant as ever in the post-communist world. Stefan Sullivan begins with a historical overview of Marx and the development of Marxist thought, before concentrating on the application of Marx's ideas to specific post-1989 features of global capitalism. (...) He shows that that core capitalist obstacles to freedom predicted by Marx - poverty, corruption and banality - continue to hold relevance in the modern world. By examining each of these themes in turn, Sullivan demonstrates the critical potential of Marxist thought in the twenty-first century and sheds light on our understanding of contemporary economics, politics and culture. Marx for a Post Communist Era combines a deep understanding of Marxist thought with journalistic engagement in real world themes. Stefan Sullivan draws on examples including the 2000 US Presidential elections, Russian tax evasion, the recent protests against the World Bank and the IMF, the ascent of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, and the fascination with fake theme bars, ethno-chic fashion and the retro-trend in design. In doing so, he highlights Marx's legacy outside the academic world. (shrink)

Micro Credit (MC) programs lend money to poor borrowers using innovative mechanisms such as group lending under joint liability while successfully accounting for the presence of asymmetric information in underdeveloped financial markets. MC programs have achieved what the conventional financial institutions and the government have not been able to: lend to the poor, impressive loan recuperation, and a positive impact in poverty reduction. This article analyzes the performance of ALSOL, an MC program in Chiapas, México, for 2151 participants in (...) urban and rural areas for the time period between July 2000 and July 2001. While loan recuperation is high (95%), administrative costs also remain high. Socially responsible lenders and donors play a key role in providing continuous funding to MC programs and assisting in reducing the level of poverty. (shrink)

This article deals with the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on poverty and education in Africa. It considers the scale and scope of the pandemic and its anticipated impact on education systems in heavily infected sub-Saharan African countries. It looks for lessons derived from twenty years of coping with HIV/AIDS in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. The paper concludes by suggesting how the education sector can improve its management response to the pandemic in order to protect (...) education provision and quality, and to mitigate the distress of increasing numbers of orphans and other vulnerable children (OVC). (shrink)

Currently, entrepreneurs and corporations overwhelmingly do not view the alleviation of global poverty as a strategic priority. Yet business activity can have a negative as well as a positive effect on each distinctive form of poverty. In order to reduce poverty, entrepreneurs have to find ways of limiting the negative aspects. This might be achieved by deliberately augmenting strategies so that they can achieve a synthesis, in partnership with governments and NGO’s.

This article examines the practices of international business in the South Pacific island nation of Fiji. After an investigation of past practices of international businesses and the ways these have helped to shape the major social challenges confronting the nation today, the article turns to an exploration of those challenges, especially poverty and race relations. It is argued that there are two paramount responsibilities for international business operating in a context like Fiji: to conduct their business operations in ways (...) that genuinely add economic value locally; and to make a concerted and informed effort to avoid doing social harm. In order to meet these responsibilities, managers will have to do much better than their predecessors in terms of concern for and understanding of the unique social and cultural attributes of Fijian society. (shrink)

From the seventeenth to the mid?nineteenth centuries, the language of natural law and natural rights structured the commitment of liberalism to the development of both a market society and democratic political institutions. The existence of widespread poverty was seen, at various times, as a problem to be resolved either by an expanding commercial/capitalistic society or through democratic political reform. As Thomas Home shows in Property Rights and Poverty, liberalism as apolitical theory has, from its origins, been deeply committed (...) to (at least a minimalist) social welfare policy. Nevertheless, not only have the dimensions of the problem of poverty increased with the growth of democratic capitalist society, but also, viewed from an historical perspective, it is the problem of poverty that exposes the fundamental tensions at the heart of liberal political theory. (shrink)

This article provides the theoretical resources to resolve a number of conundrums in the work of William Julius Wilson and John Ogbu. Contrary to what Wilson's and Ogbu's work sometimes imply, inner-city blacks are not enmeshed in a "culture of poverty," but rather are generally committed to mainstream values and their normative expectations. Activities that deviate from these values derive from the cognitive expectations inner-city blacks have formed in the face of their restricted legitimate opportunity structures. These expectations, which (...) suggest that educational and occupational success are improbable for inner-city residents, are accurate. If their opportunities were to improve, their cognitive expectations would change and most would be committed to taking advantage of these new opportunities. The differences that separate the inner-city poor from whites center on cultural symbols, which help constitute their identity, sometimes in opposition to the white majority. Most deficiencies in performance among blacks stem not from these cultural attributes, but from the way they are processed in white-dominated organizations. Given a majority commitment to equal opportunity and a majority belief that blacks actually have equal opportunity, many conclude from their performance that blacks are in some sense inferior. This "new racism" overdetermines the performance of blacks. (shrink)

A common moral imperative to reduce human suffering in developing countries has helped to bring the international poverty reduction and conflict mitigation agendas together. But while research and practice are well established in the fields of poverty and conflict, the nexus between these two fields at the theoretical and practical levels is largely nascent. Lack of a shared body of knowledge has arguably impeded the ability of these communities to work together toward the overlapping goals of reducing (...) class='Hi'>poverty and conflict in countries affected by violence and instability. Business, as a key sector of the international community, could potentially make significant contributions to the joint agenda if it were better integrated in efforts to develop the nexus. This article surveys the current states-of-knowledge in the fields of poverty and conflict, including the increasing influence of the fragile states theory. It then discusses some of the major schools of thought helping to bring poverty reduction efforts into alliance with conflict mitigation efforts. The third section identifies important conceptual convergences and divergences between the fields and reconsiders the prominent assumption that economic opportunity can be a powerful incentive for peace and stability. Finally, this article discusses potential areas that could advance the nexus of poverty and conflict at both a theoretical and practical level. (shrink)

Although contract sugarcane farming is the most dominant and popular land use among farmers in Nzoia Sugarbelt, results from a 2007 study suggests that the intended goal of increasing farmers’ incomes seems to have failed. With a mean monthly income of Kenya Shillings 723 (US $ 10) from an average cane acreage of 0.38 hectares, it would be difficult for a household of eight family members to meet their basic needs and lead a decent life. Analysis of farmer statements showed (...) that up to 86% of the changes in net income were significantly determined by six cost variables as a group (i.e., acreage, tillage costs, seedcane costs, transport costs, yield, and farmer’s education level). Area under sugarcane had the greatest influence on net income whereby an increase in one hectare under cane would result in an increase of Kenya Shillings 110,427 in net income (per crop cycle of 21 months), holding other variables constant. This translates into Kenya shillings 5,258 per month (or 175 per day per household, or for a family of eight people—KES 22 or US $ 0.3) per member, which is far below the international standard of absolute poverty. Key net income depressors were tillage, seedcane, and transportation costs, all of which were determined by the company with no input from farmers. To bridge income gaps between the company and farmers in favor of sustainable community livelihoods, this paper argues strongly for the need to institutionalize Corporate Social Responsibility within the daily operations of the company particularly to address net-income depressors. Ten key building blocks for such a policy for Nzoia Sugar Company are suggested, based on farmers’ responses and ethical considerations. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Mexico has long suffered from poverty. Two common government approaches to poverty reduction are public spending for social programs, and public spending for economic competitiveness programs. This article summarizes the nature and effects of these two approaches based on information published in Mexican journals and international research institution reports written in Spanish. Since 1990, public spending for social programs has increased at an annual rate of 7%, whereas spending for economic competitiveness programs has become stagnant. Researchers report that: (...) (1) spending on social programs may not be the primary cause for poverty reduction, (2) social programs may not be reaching those with the greatest need, and (3) social program spending may be causing a decrease in productivity and economic growth. More resources are needed for economic competitiveness programs that increase workforce productivity and well-paid jobs. (shrink)

Is it morally permissible for financially privileged tourists to visit places for the purpose of experiencing where poor people live, work, and play? Tourism associated with this question is commonly referred to as ?poverty tourism?. While some poverty tourism is plausibly ethical, other practices will be more controversial. The purpose of this essay is to address mutually beneficial cases of poverty tourism and advance the following positions. First, even mutually beneficial transactions between tourists and residents in (...) class='Hi'>poverty tourism always run a risk of being exploitative. Second, there is little opportunity to determine whether a given tour is exploitative since tourists lack good access to the residents' perspectives. Third, if a case of poverty tourism is exploitative, it is so in an indulgent way; tourists are not compelled to exploit the residents. In light of these considerations, we conclude that would-be tourists should participate in poverty tours only if there is a well-established collaborative and consensual process in place, akin to a ?fair trade? process. (shrink)

William James, concerned with the issue of the applicability of traditional religious virtues to modern society, argues for the significance of ascetic virtues in general and voluntary poverty in particular, not least because of their contribution to the actualization of benevolence. Examining and evaluating his account uncovers the ways in which James is a virtue theorist, some distinctive characteristics of religious virtues, and both the possibilities and difficulties in any modern defense of a traditional virtue that appears as (...) odd as does voluntary poverty. (shrink)

In this essay I address three ways in which Edwards can inform Christian understanding of public life. First I show how Edwards provides both philosophical and theological rationales for social engagement and thereby resists the separation of religion from public life, and use his consideration of poverty as an illustration. Part II examines Edwards's dialectical treatment of patriotism, demonstrating both its importance to the Christian life and its susceptibility to deceptive accommodation to culture. Finally, in Part III I discuss (...) Edwards's use of "national covenant," which despite its temptation to chauvinism Edwards used to undermine national pride. In the conclusion I assess what we can use from Edwards for contemporary Christian understandings of public life. (shrink)

This article provides critical analysis of Aquinas’s designation of poverty as unqualifiedly evil. This paper provides an analysis of two different meanings of poverty: (a) in relation to things or to the external conditions in which people live and (b) in relation to an action in which people engage or are thwarted. Next, the paper discusses the sense in which poverty is an evil—and particularly, an unqualified evil—in relation to both of these meanings of poverty. Since (...) Aquinas claims that poverty is an unqualified evil so far as it prevents people from attaining the ends of sustaining themselves and assisting others, the final section of the paper discusses possible interpretations of these ends, suggesting that each end can be taken in a narrow, minimalist or subsistence sense and a broader, more holistic or contextualized sense. (shrink)

Economists have often attempted precise measurement of phenomena which involve vague predicates. Difficulties emerge in such attempts if vagueness is not explicitly acknowledged at the methodological level. In this paper, various accounts of vague concepts are used to think about the economics of poverty measurement. Approaches to dealing with vagueness in this context tend to involve 'epistemic' and 'fuzzy set theoretic' approaches. Indeed, only the fuzzy set theoretic literature takes on vagueness explicitly. It is argued that both these (...) approaches encounter significant difficulties, and that fuzzy set theoretic measures are hard to interpret intuitively. A 'supervaluationist' approach to the vagueness of poverty is developed. It is argued that this approach has much to recommend it and that some fuzzy measures can be interpreted intuitively as measures of vulnerability on this account. (shrink)

Abstract The debate on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been going on for decades, without leading to a clearer understanding of the term. Furthermore, the current literature on the topic remains relatively silent on the actual impact of CSR, especially the impact on issues of international development, for example poverty reduction in the Global South. By developing a conceptual assessment framework with a bipolar differentiated definition of CSR and a Sen-based notion of poverty, the article analyses the effects (...) and impact of two different types of CSR-strategies on the reduction of poverty. For this, two case studies have been conducted in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The results imply that CSR measures which are built into the core business of a company (both transnational companies and small/medium sized companies) have larger effects on poverty than CSR measures which are located outside of the core business activities. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-33 DOI 10.1007/s13520-012-0016-6 Authors Maike J. Schölmerich, Institute for Development and Peace, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany Journal Asian Journal of Business Ethics Online ISSN 2210-6731 Print ISSN 2210-6723. (shrink)

Although contract sugarcane farming is the most dominant and popular land use among farmers in Nzoia Sugarbelt, results from a 2007 study suggests that the intended goal of increasing farmers’ incomes seems to have failed. With a mean monthly income of Kenya Shillings 723 (US $ 10) from an average cane acreage of 0.38 hectares, it would be difficult for a household of eight family members to meet their basic needs and lead a decent life. Analysis of farmer statements showed (...) that up to 86% of the changes in net income were significantly determined by six cost variables as a group (i.e., acreage, tillage costs, seedcane costs, transport costs, yield, and farmer’s education level). Area under sugarcane had the greatest influence on net income whereby an increase in one hectare under cane would result in an increase of Kenya Shillings 110,427 in net income (per crop cycle of 21 months), holding other variables constant. This translates into Kenya shillings 5,258 per month (or 175 per day per household, or for a family of eight people—KES 22 or US $ 0.3) per member, which is far below the international standard of absolute poverty. Key net income depressors were tillage, seedcane, and transportation costs, all of which were determined by the company with no input from farmers. To bridge income gaps between the company and farmers in favor of sustainable community livelihoods, this paper argues strongly for the need to institutionalize Corporate Social Responsibility within the daily operations of the company particularly to address net-income depressors. Ten key building blocks for such a policy for Nzoia Sugar Company are suggested, based on farmers’ responses and ethical considerations. (shrink)

I argue that stigmatization and inferiorization constitute the most destructive form of everyday poverty, the meaning of which is shown through a phenomenological interpretation of skid row. There are three parts to the paper. First, there is a brief discussion of poverty as a philosophical problem. Second, and ancillary to the analysis of skid row, there are discussions of the character of human dignity, everyday meaningful action and the psycho-social dynamics of stigmatization. Third, there is an analysis of (...) skid row which, drawing on Heidegger’s death-analysis in Being and Time, concludes by characterizing skid row poverty as a kind of living death. (shrink)

Jeffrey Sachs, an economist with a passion and experienced global view, makes a compelling call to action to bring an end to extreme poverty worldwide by the year 2025. He makes a strong case that not only is this goal within our reach, but that Americans have a vested interest in seeing the rest of the world in a stable economic situation.Based on years of experience in impoverished countries and his work as the director of the Columbia Earth Institute (...) at Columbia University, Sachs makes a direct comparison between poverty, government instability, and an ongoing threat to the safety of the United States. He points out that any time a country is impoverished and its population lacking in education, the citizenry .. (shrink)

While investigating the role of business and accepting that profitable partnerships are the primary solution for poverty alleviation, we voice certain concerns that we hope will extend the authors’ discourse in Alleviating Poverty through Profitable Partnerships . We present a model that we believe can serve as an effective framework for addressing these issues. We then establish the imperative of inclusive growth. Here, we engage with the necessity of formulating strategies that focus on the pace and, importantly, the (...) pattern of economic growth, including its social and cultural dimensions. We also deliberate on the parameters of inclusive growth with the overriding objective of ensuring that multiple strata of society share the benefits of globalization. Turning to the critical role of institutions in promoting social welfare, we explore the impact of government policy vis-à-vis the leverage enjoyed by other social institutions. Despite the reality that state and private interests often operate at cross purposes, we argue that government must still be an integral part of the solution matrix. With direction from other social institutions, entrepreneurial forces can be unleashed to tackle endemic poverty prevalent in the base of the pyramid. We then provide an in-depth case study in which the availability of telecommunications in rural areas was utilized as a means to foster development and ensure inclusive growth. The conclusion examines lessons learned while operationalizing the model, and spells out the impact of our enablers at ground level. (shrink)

This article explains some moral dimensions of a transnational feminist research project designed to provide a better standard or metric for measuring poverty across the world. The author is an investigator on this project. Poverty metrics incorporate moral judgments about what is necessary for a decent life, so justifying metrics requires moral argumentation. The article clarifies the moral aspects of poverty valuation, indicates some moral flaws in existing global poverty metrics, and outlines some conditions for a (...) better global metric. It then explains the methodology used in our project, providing its moral rationale and discussing some remaining moral concerns. (shrink)

The paper develops a preliminary framework for confronting poverty within the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition. In the first section, I draw on St. Gregory of Nazianzus’s Oration 14 to discuss what is called the stigma of poverty. Although stigmatization is not essentially linked to everyday economic poverty, poor people as such are often subjected to stigmatization. For example, disaffiliation grounded in social rejection was often a distinguishing mark between pôtchos and penês. Moreover, stigmatization in itself constitutes its (...) own form of poverty since those who are stigmatized are imputed to be fundamentally impoverished or defective as person. In the second section, I focus on the writings of St. John Chrysostom and argue that the central problem for Chrysostom is not poverty but wealth, or more properly the ways in which we acquire and use wealth and the ends to which it is put. Put simply, for Chrysostom, a critical, engaged and spiritual response to poverty presupposes a critical and spiritual response to wealth. (shrink)

The persistence of poverty is one of the great problems of our times. In this paper I want to show how we can use Michel Foucault’s work to recast thisproblem through a genealogy of the political rationality within which it appears. Foucault’s genealogies present us with at least three irreducible experiences of poverty: 1) the philosophical care of the self where poverty is a goal to be attained; 2) the religious sacralization of the poor and charity; and (...) 3) the bio-political project in which poverty is a social disease to be cured or purged or a resource to be exploited. Foucault offers us the hope of resisting the danger of bio-politics, the cynical logic that stigmatizes the poor for their poverty and places them in apparatuses that treat them like a social disease, a moral failure, or a subhuman form of life. (shrink)

Complementing recent studies by Keown, Whitehill, and Hallisey that associate Buddhist ethics with the virtue tradition, the author proposes that Buddhist virtue requires both overcoming attachment to self and compassionate regard for others. Within a broader framework of comparative religious ethics, such a claim is not extraordinary; overcoming prudentialist self-interest, cultivating sympathy, and acting on others' behalf are ethical values highly praised by most religious traditions, including Buddhism. Nevertheless, this proposal runs counter to those who hold Theravāda Buddhism to (...) be dominated by the world-renouncing values of the monk antithetical to a social ethic. It also differs from the view that monastic and lay ethics, while not in opposition, are merely complementary. The author contends that the moral value of voluntary poverty, ordinarily labeled a monastic virtue, can be seen as the foundation for other-regarding virtues such as compassion and benevolence. (shrink)

'Poverty itself is a violation of numerous basic human rights.' (Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner on Human Rights) -/- The idea that freedom from poverty is a basic human right that gives rise to moral and legal obligations of governments and other actors has received increased international attention in recent years. Mary Robinson, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has pushed the international agenda on poverty and human rights forward by characterizing extreme poverty (...) as one of the key human rights problems that the world faces. The recognition of poverty as a human rights issue is also increasingly reflected in the work of international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and of campaigning organizations such as Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. -/- In Poverty and Human Rights Vizard analyses the importance of the work of the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen for contemporary debates about poverty and human rights. Bringing together perspectives from ethics, economics, and international law, Vizard provides a detailed and concise analysis of Sen's contributions and examines the ways in which his work has promoted cross-fertilization and integration across traditional disciplinary divides. She demonstrates that Sen has made a major contribution to the development of an 'interdisciplinary bridge' between human rights and theoretical and empirical economics, and to the establishment of poverty as a human rights issue. -/- Vizard demonstrates that Sen's work has deepened and expanded human rights discourse in important and influential ways. In ethics, Sen is shown to have challenged the exclusion of poverty, hunger, and starvation from the characterization of fundamental freedoms and human rights, and to have contributed to the development of a framework in which authoritatively recognized international standards in this field can be meaningfully conceptualized and coherently understood. In economics, Sen is shown to have set out a far-reaching critique of standard frameworks that fail to take account of fundamental freedoms and human rights, and to have moved the economics and human rights agenda forward by pioneering the development of new paradigms and approaches which focus on these concerns. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present and evaluate a specific critical discussion of Peter Singer's view on philanthropy. This critique of Singer's position takes several forms, and here we focus on only two of these. First of all, it is claimed that philanthropy (based upon the giving up of luxury goods) should be avoided, because it harms the poor. As we shall see this is a view defended by Andrew Kuper. However, philanthropy is also accused of harming the (...) poor by being sub-optimal and standing in the way of the more effective and lasting poverty relief brought about by changes in the political and economic system. This second complaint is defended by, among others, Paul Gomberg, Anthony Langlois and David Schweickart, as well as Kuper. To our knowledge, little systematic work has been done on the presentation and evaluation of theses objections to philanthropy. In what follows, the objections are dealt with in connection with private donations made by individuals, as this is the focus, and target, of the philosophers/scientists we wish to discuss. (shrink)

Alkire examines how Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen's capability approach can be coherently-and practically-put to work in participatory poverty reduction activities. Sen argues that economic development should expand 'valuable' capabilities. Alkire probes how we identify what is valuable. -/- Sen deliberately left the capability approach 'incomplete' in order to ensure its relevance to persons and cultures with different understandings of the good. Part I proposes a framework for identifying valuable capabilities that retains this 'fundamental' incompleteness and space for individual (...) and cultural diversity. Drawing on the work of John Finnis and others, Alkire addresses foundational issues regarding the identification and pursuit of 'valuable' dimensions of human development based in practical reason, then observes that much of the criticism of development arises from negative impacts on social or cultural/religious dimensions that are also deeply valued by the poor. Part I closes with a four-part 'operational definition' of basic capability that bridges 'basic needs', participation, and informed consent. -/- Part II proposes an alternative participatory method for systematically identifying valued changes in participants' capability sets. Three case studies of women's income generation activities in Pakistan---goat-rearing, adult literacy, and rose cultivation---contrast economic cost-benefit analysis of each activity with capability analysis. -/- . (shrink)

Poverty tours—actual visits as well as literary and cinematic versions—are characterized as morally controversial trips and condemned in the press as voyeuristic endeavors. In this collaborative essay, we draw from personal experience, legal expertise, and phenomenological philosophy and introduce a conceptual taxonomy that clarifies the circumstances in which observing others has been construed as an immoral use of the gaze. We appeal to this taxonomy to determine which observational circumstances are ethically relevant to the poverty tourism debate. While (...) we do not defend all or even most poverty tourism practices, we do conclude that categorical condemnation of poverty tourism is unjustified. (shrink)

This book addresses the pressing issue of severe poverty and inequality, and questions why violations of socio-economic rights are treated with less urgency than violations of civil and political rights, such as the right to freedom of speech or to vote? -/- Socio-economic rights have been widely regarded as aspirational goals, rhetorically useful, but having few practical implications for government policy and the distribution of resources within a polity. It is not therefore surprising that socio-economic rights have been systematically (...) neglected in the world today, with millions still lacking access to even basic shelter, food or health-care. This book seeks to provide a sustained argument for placing renewed emphasis upon socio-economic rights in the fight against desperate poverty. It utilizes a combination of political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy in its focus on the right to food, to housing, and to health-care. -/- Part I involves the development of a philosophical theory of rights that provides a common normative foundation for both civil and political rights and socio-economic rights. This theory involves developing an understanding of value that recognizes individuals have fundamental interests of differing levels of urgency. It also involves drawing an important distinction between conditional rights that flow purely from a normative focus on the equal importance of individuals and unconditional rights that involve competing normative and pragmatic considerations. A general theory of judicial review is also put forward that provides a justification for judicial involvement in the enforcement of socio-economic rights. -/- Part II then considers the implications of this general philosophical theory for the interpretation and enforcement of socio-economic rights in law. The focus of this more applied discussion is upon South Africa, where entrenched, directly justiciable socio-economic rights are expressly protected in the Constitution. The 'reasonableness' interpretive approach adopted by South Africa's Constitutional Court is critiqued and a modified version of the 'minimum' core approach proposed as the leading alternative. The latter approach requires priority to be given to the worst off in society through placing a heavy burden of justification on any society that fails to meet the minimal interests of individuals. It also requires concrete steps to be taken towards realizing a higher level of provision that guarantees individuals the necessary conditions for realizing a wide range of purposes. This approach is also shown to have important policy implications both for developing and developed countries and can, it is hoped, assist in creating an urgency and commitment towards eradicating extreme poverty. (shrink)

Economic growth requires a focus on building the assets of the poor, a strategic approach that is considerably broader than developing the poor only asconsumers and workers. The long-term sustainability of business and society will be enhanced if corporate investments that impact on poverty alleviation are far reaching, multi-faceted, and built through multi-sector partnerships. Emerging evidence indicates that corporations are increasingly involved on two important fronts: directly investing in ways that reduce poverty, and advocating for public policy investments (...) to build the assets of the poor. Corporate involvement in asset policy can be understood as a new manifestation of corporate/business citizenship. (shrink)

In Property Rights and Poverty, / argued that seventeenth? to mid?nineteenth?century liberal theories of the natural right to property included both the ability to exclude others from resources lawfully acquired and the ability to claim as property the resources necessary for life and livelihood. Virtually every defense of the right to exclude written during this period carried limits which allowed and even required the government to enforce the rights of those without resources to the property of others. But although (...) Locke, among others, was a theorist of welfare rights, it is a mistake to describe him as a radical, as Richard Ashcraft does, which identifies Locke's purposes too closely with the legitimately radical theorists of the early nineteenth century who were deeply influenced by his work. (shrink)

Most of the Latin American population, including in places like Mexico and Brazil, is becoming extremely poor, slipping in the last ten years from poverty to extreme poverty. Native communities are in this condition: to live only to survive, lacking any opportunity to improve or at least meet their basics needs of food and shelter. I practiced P4C in the multicultural community of Juchitán, Oaxaca, to find if P4C overcame the limitations of extreme poverty, respecting the cultural (...) diversity while obtaining positive results. (shrink)

Collected here in one volume are fifteen cutting-edge essays by leading academics which together clarify and defend the claim that freedom from poverty is a human right with corresponding binding obligations on the more affluent to practice effective poverty avoidance. The nature of human rights and their corresponding duties is examined, as is the theoretical standing of the social, economic and cultural rights. The authors largely agree in concluding that there is a human right to be free from (...) poverty and that this right is massively violated by the present world economy which creates huge unfair imbalances in income and wealth among and within countries. This searing indictment of the status quo is all the more powerful as the authors endorsing it exemplify diverse philosophical methods and moral traditions and also highlight different aspects of poverty and global institutional arrangements. This volume will be of great interest and value to academics working in the fields of philosophy, political science and international relations, as well as to undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines. It will also be a crucial aid and challenge to practitioners in international governmental organizations (such as the UN and its agencies) and NGOs who think of their work in human-rights terms. Indeed, in view of the magnitude of the human rights deficit at issue, any moral citizen has reason to engage with the arguments of this book. And the book makes this possible for most in that, throughout, even the most complex aspects of rights theory is discussed in clear, direct language, making the text accessible to specialists and lay readers alike Co-published with UNESCO. (shrink)

World poverty represents a failure of the international community to see half of the global population secure their basic socio-economic rights. Yet international law establishes that cooperation is essential to the realisation of these human rights. In an era of considerable interdependence and marked economic and political advantage, the particular features of contemporary world poverty give rise to pressing questions about the scope, evolution, and application of the international law of human rights, and the attribution of global responsibility. (...) -/- This book considers the evolving nature of human rights and international cooperation in international law as a basis for addressing the role and responsibility of the international community in the creation of an environment conducive to a human-centred globalization. It offers a detailed examination of the historically controversial right to development and, through a careful consideration of its current significance and application, reflects the importance of the rationale of the right to development onto the critical challenge of poverty in the 21st century. -/- Through doctrine and jurisprudence this timely publication provides a systematic exposition of the legal responsibility of the powerful members of the international community to cooperate in addressing the structural obstacles that impact on the ability of states to develop and to fulfil their human rights obligations. (shrink)

I argue that philosophy is like science in three interesting and non-obvious ways. First, the claims made by philosophy are synthetic, not analytic: philosophical claims, just like scientific claims, are not guaranteed by the structure of the concepts they involve. Second, philosophical knowledge is a posteriori, not a priori: the claims established by philosophers depend on the same kind of empirical support as scientific theories. And finally, the central questions of philosophy concern actuality rather than necessity: philosophy is primarily aimed (...) at understanding the actual world studied by science, not some further realm of metaphysical modality. (shrink)

Many assert that affluent countries have contributed in the past to poverty in developing countries through wars of aggression and conquest, colonialism and its legacies, the imposition of puppet leaders, and support for brutal dictators and venal elites. Thomas Pogge has recently argued that there is an additional and, arguably, even more consequential way in which the affluent continue to contribute to poverty in the developing world. He argues that when people cooperate in instituting and upholding institutional arrangements (...) that foreseeably result in more severe or more widespread poverty or human rights deficits than would foreseeably result under feasible alternative arrangements, they are contributors to these harms. Because of this, he argues, they have stringent, contribution-based (or negative) duties to address this poverty. We will call this the ‘Feasible Alternatives Thesis' (FAT), and our aim in this article is to examine it critically. (shrink)

This article argues that there is no sound basis for thinking that we have a general and strong duty to rectify disparities of wealth around the world, apart from the special case where some become wealthy by theft or fraud. The nearest thing we have to a rational morality for all has to be built on the interests of all, and they include substantial freedoms, but not substantial entitlements to others assistance. It is also pointed out that the situation of (...) the worlds poor is not that of victims of disasters, but simply of less-developed technology, which can be repaired by full and free trade relations with others. The true savior of the worlds poor is the businessman, not the missionary. What we do need to do is strike down barriers to commerce, rather than requisition aid. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor argues that Darwin was wrong about "natural selection" because (1) it is only a tautology rather than a scientific law that can support counterfactuals ("If X had happened, Y would have happened") and because (2) only minds can select. Hence Darwin's analogy with "artificial selection" by animal breeders was misleading and evolutionary explanation is nothing but post-hoc historical narrative. I argue that Darwin was right on all counts. Until Darwin's "tautology," it had been believed that either (a) God (...) had created all organisms as they are, or (b) organisms had always been as they are. Darwin revealed instead that (c) organisms have heritable traits that evolved across time through random variation, with survival and reproduction in (changing) environments determining (mindlessly) which variants were successfully transmitted to the next generation. This not only provided the (true) alternative (c), but also the methodology for investigating which traits had been adaptive, how and why; it also led to the discovery of the genetic mechanism of the encoding, variation and evolution of heritable traits. Fodor also draws erroneous conclusions from the analogy between Darwinian evolution and Skinnerian reinforcement learning. Fodor’s skepticism about both evolution and learning may be motivated by an overgeneralization of Chomsky’s “poverty of the stimulus argument” -- from the origin of Universal Grammar (UG) to the origin of the “concepts” underlying word meaning, which, Fodor thinks, must be “endogenous,” rather than evolved or learned. (shrink)