Harming the Global Poor. On the Causal and Moral Role of Institutions

Abstract

The matter of the nature of the duties of the rich to alleviate (and ideally, to abolish) suffering caused by extreme poverty has been widely debated in contemporary political philosophy and practical ethics. Typically, two questions are raised: first, do the rich have negative or positive duties; and second, on this basis, how should they act? In this paper, I will argue that the abolishment of extreme poverty cannot take place without a functional institutional structure in poor countries. Thus notions of distribution which merely refer to the duty of charitable giving, without taking into account the malfunctions of the existing institutional structure in the poor countries, potentially lead to recommending dysfunctional policies. This reality needs to be taken into account in political philosophy. Yet I also argue that, despite the importance of the institutional basis, the present global order allows and incentivizes harming the global poor. This is done exactly by affecting the (broadly understood) institutional structure of poor countries. To support this argument, I will analyse in detail Mathias Risse's argument against Thomas Pogge's notion of harming the global poor. I will show that while the basis of Risse's argument is correct, he fails to realize that his argument leads to quite similar conclusions about harming as Pogge's argument does.