This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
I owe special thanks to Gillian Brock, Jerry Gaus, David Reidy, and the audience at the University of Rochester (especially John Bennett) for discussing this objection with me.
She does suggest that actions require the kind of control intentions provide, but we are often responsible for things we do not intend to do.
Obviously, this is not enough to show that the global institutional system is a conglomerate, but it might go some way towards doing so.
Perhaps Gosselin could even take this line since she seems amenable to using “intention” to indicate anything with a reason for acting (Gosselin 2009, 79–81).
Nor does knowing that someone has, say, benefitted from institutional injustice tell us much about what they should do to rectify the injustice. More generally, it is not clear that the move towards this kind of (institutional) responsibility helps us say anything useful about individuals’ responsibilities.
Insofar as Gosselin is only trying to sketch the landscape of possible accounts of responsibility, I believe her book is largely successful (though, like any sketch, it might fruitfully be extended). But she is not only trying to provide a sketch of different accounts of responsibility. And, insofar as her aim is to defend the account of responsibility she lays out, I think she does not do enough. For, many argue that we should not endorse all of the kinds of responsibility she sets out. Gosselin admits, for instance, that her arguments will not convince those who believe duties of beneficence and partiality exhaust our moral responsibilities (Gosselin, 2009, Ch. 1). Further, Gosselin recognizes that some believe that there are only institutional responsibilities, while others think that collective responsibilities do not exist at all (Gosselin, 2009, 135). Finally, some might prefer accounts of responsibility unified (at least in ideal theory) by a single (e.g. human rights) baseline specifying what people owe to others. Even granting her claims about what responsibility requires in the abstract, however, it is not clear to me that her claims about affluent individuals’ responsibilities in particular cases follow. More empirical evidence is necessary to defend her claim, for instance, that the affluent have benefitted from injustice (Gosselin, ch. 5).
References
Beitz, C. (1979) Political theory and international relations Princeton University Press, New Jersey.
Boonin, D. (2009) Untitled Manuscript. Chapter 2: Repairing the Slave Reparations Debate. January 2009 draft. University of Colorado, Boulder. Available at: <http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/PHIL4260/>.
Brock, G. (2009) Global justice: A cosmopolitan account Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Freeman, S. (2007) Justice and the social contract: Essays on Rawlsian social and political philosophy Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Green, M. (2002) “Institutional responsibility for global problems” Philosophical Topics. 30, 2: 79–96
Hassoun, N. (2008) “World poverty and individual freedom” American Philosophical Quarterly 45, 2: 191–198.
Hassoun, N. (2009) “Global justice in a globalizing world” Carnegie Mellon University Working Paper. Available at: <http://www.hss.cmu.edu/philosophy/hassoun/papers.php>.
Miller, D. (2007) National responsibility and global justice Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Nagel, T. (2005) “The problem of global justice” Philosophy and Public Affairs 33, 2: 113–147.
Nickel, J. 2008) Making sense of human rights Blackwell Press: Oxford.
Pogge, T. (1989) Realizing Rawls Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
Pogge, T. (2008) “Cohen to the rescue!” Ratio 2, 4: 454–475
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hassoun, N. Global Poverty and Individual Responsibility: An Adequate Account. Hum Rights Rev 11, 277–280 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-009-0137-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-009-0137-z