Abstract
In On Trade Justice, Risse and Wollner defend an account of trade justice on which the central requirement, applying to both states and firms, is a requirement of non-exploitation. On their view, trade exploitation consists in ‘power-induced failure of reciprocity’, which generates an unfair distribution of the benefits and burdens associated with trade relationships. In this paper, I argue that while there are many appealing features of Risse and Wollner’s account, their discussion does not articulate and develop the unified picture of states’ and firms’ obligations that they aim to provide as clearly as it might have. In particular, it is, I claim, unclear exactly how they understand the relationship between the fairness-based requirements that apply to states and those that apply to firms. I argue that there are two types of accounts that they might accept: a transactional account and a structural account. I offer reasons to think that there are reasons to prefer a structural account. In addition, I note some of the key implications of accepting such an account, and suggest that if Risse and Wollner accept these implications and revise other aspects of their view accordingly, the result is a plausible and unified account of what trade justice requires.
Acknowledgments
For helpful written comments, I am grateful to Christina Skinner. I have also benefitted from discussions with Vince Buccola, Rob Hughes, Julian Jonker, and Amy Sepinwall.
References
Berkey, B. 2017. “Benefiting from Unjust Acts and Benefiting from Injustice: Historical Emissions and the Beneficiary Pays Principle.” In Climate Justice and Historical Emissions, edited by L. Meyer, and P. Sanklecha, 123–40. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781107706835.007Search in Google Scholar
Berkey, B. 2019. “Collective Obligations and Demandingness Complaints.” Moral Philosophy and Politics 6 (1): 113–32, https://doi.org/10.1515/mopp-2018-0059.Search in Google Scholar
Berkey, B. 2020a. “The Value of Fairness and the Wrong of Wage Exploitation.” Business Ethics Quarterly 30 (3): 414–29, https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2020.16.Search in Google Scholar
Berkey, B. 2020b. “Effectiveness and Demandingness.” Utilitas 32 (3): 368–81, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0953820820000084.Search in Google Scholar
Berkey, B. 2021. “Sweatshops, Structural Injustice, and the Wrong of Exploitation: Why Multinational Corporations Have Positive Duties to the Global Poor.” Journal of Business Ethics 169 (1): 43–56, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04299-1.Search in Google Scholar
Berkey, B. Forthcoming. “Who is Wronged by Wrongful Exploitation?” In Exploitation: Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, edited by B. Ferguson, and M. Zwolinski. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Butt, D. 2007. “On Benefitting from Injustice.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (1): 129–52, https://doi.org/10.1353/cjp.2007.0010.Search in Google Scholar
Butt, D. 2014. “A Doctrine Quite New and Altogether Untenable: Defending the Beneficiary Pays Principle.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 31 (4): 336–48, https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12073.Search in Google Scholar
Dorsey, D. 2016. The Limits of Moral Authority. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198728900.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Faraci, D. 2019. “Wage Exploitation and the Nonworseness Claim: Allowing the Wrong, To Do More Good.” Business Ethics Quarterly 29 (2): 169–88, https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2018.28.Search in Google Scholar
Ferguson, B. 2016. “The Paradox of Exploitation.” Erkenntnis 81 (5): 851–72, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-015-9776-4.Search in Google Scholar
Ferguson, B., and S. Köhler. 2020. “Betterness of Permissibility.” Philosophical Studies 177 (9): 2451–69, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01319-8.Search in Google Scholar
Goodin, R., and C. Barry. 2014. “Benefiting from the Wrongdoing of Others.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 31 (4): 363–76, https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12077.Search in Google Scholar
Gosseries, A. 2004. “Historical Emissions and Free-Riding.” Ethical Perspectives 11 (1): 36–60, https://doi.org/10.2143/ep.11.1.504779.Search in Google Scholar
Gray, D. 2020. “Rethinking Micro-level Exploitation.” Social Theory and Practice 46 (3): 515–46, https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract202051295.Search in Google Scholar
Haydar, B., and G. Øverland. 2014. “The Normative Implications of Benefiting from Injustice.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 31 (4): 349–62, https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12078.Search in Google Scholar
Horton, J. 2017. “The All or Nothing Problem.” Journal of Philosophy 114 (2): 94–104, https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil201711427.Search in Google Scholar
James, A. 2012. Fairness in Practice: A Social Contract for a Global Economy. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199846153.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
James, A. 2014. “A Theory of Fairness in Trade.” Moral Philosophy and Politics 1 (2): 177–200, https://doi.org/10.1515/mopp-2014-0007.Search in Google Scholar
Karnein, A. 2017. “Asking Beneficiaries to Pay for Past Pollution.” In Climate Justice and Historical Emissions, edited by L. Meyer, and P. Sanklecha, 107–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781107706835.006Search in Google Scholar
Kates, M. 2019. “Sweatshops, Exploitation, and the Case for a Fair Wage.” Journal of Political Philosophy 27 (1): 26–47, https://doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12155.Search in Google Scholar
Kuch, H. 2020. “The Market, Competition, and Structural Exploitation.” Constellations 27 (1): 95–110, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8675.12443.Search in Google Scholar
Mayer, R. 2007. “Sweatshops, Exploitation, and Moral Responsibility.” Journal of Social Philosophy 38 (4): 605–19, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9833.2007.00401.x.Search in Google Scholar
McKeown, M. 2016. “Global Structural Exploitation: Towards an Intersectional Definition.” Global Justice: Theory, Practice, Rhetoric 9 (2): 155–77.10.21248/gjn.9.2.116Search in Google Scholar
Meckled-Garcia, S. 2014. “Does the WTO Violate Human Rights (and Do I Help It)? Beyond the Metaphor of Culpability for Systemic Global Poverty.” Political Studies 62 (2): 435–51, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12036.Search in Google Scholar
Meyers, C. 2004. “Wrongful Beneficence: Exploitation and Third World Sweatshops.” Journal of Social Philosophy 35 (3): 319–33, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9833.2004.00235.x.Search in Google Scholar
Olson, K. A. 2014. “Autarky as a Moral Baseline.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 44 (2): 264–85, https://doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2014.929857.Search in Google Scholar
Page, E. 2012. “Give It Up for Climate Change: A Defense of the Beneficiary Pays Principle.” International Theory 4 (2): 300–30, https://doi.org/10.1017/s175297191200005x.Search in Google Scholar
Pummer, T. 2016. “Whether and Where to Give.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 44 (1): 77–95, https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12065.Search in Google Scholar
Pummer, T. 2019. “All or Nothing, But if Not All, Next Best or Nothing.” Journal of Philosophy 116 (5): 278–91, https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil2019116518.Search in Google Scholar
Risse, M. 2012. On Global Justice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Risse, M., and G. Wollner. 2019. On Trade Justice: A Philosophical Plea for a New Global Deal. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198837411.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Rulli, T. 2020. “Conditional Obligations.” Social Theory and Practice 46 (2): 365–90, https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract20204189.Search in Google Scholar
Silver, K. 2019. “Can a Corporation be Worthy of Moral Consideration?” Journal of Business Ethics 159 (1): 253–65, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-3787-4.Search in Google Scholar
Snyder, J. 2008. “Needs Exploitation.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (4): 389–405, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9115-9.Search in Google Scholar
Valentini, L. 2011. “Coercion and (Global) Justice.” American Political Science Review 105 (1): 205–20, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055410000559.Search in Google Scholar
Wertheimer, A. 1996. Exploitation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.10.1515/9780691214511Search in Google Scholar
Wollner, G. 2019. “Anonymous Exploitation: Non-individual, Non-agential, and Structural.” Review of Social Economy 77 (2): 143–62, https://doi.org/10.1080/00346764.2018.1525758.Search in Google Scholar
Young, I. M. 2004. “Responsibility and Global Labor Justice.” Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (4): 365–88, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9760.2004.00205.x.Search in Google Scholar
Zwolinski, M. 2012. “Structural Exploitation.” Social Philosophy and Policy 29 (1): 154–79, https://doi.org/10.1017/s026505251100015x.Search in Google Scholar
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
