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Global Justice and the Modern Empire

Richard W. Miller: Globalizing Justice: The Ethics of Poverty and Power, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, 341 pp

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Notes

  1. A Cosmopolitan approach to justice implies that principles of distributive justice should not only operate within a nation-state level but should be global in scope. At least two ideal types of cosmopolitanism can be identified: what Caney (2001: 975) calls ‘radical’ and ‘mild’ cosmopolitanism. The radical version combines the positive claim that there are principles of global justice and the negative claim that there are no state-wide or nation-wide principles of distributive justice. Mild cosmopolitans only accept the first claim. Typically, although not invariably, mild cosmopolitans admit that people may have some special duties of justice to fellow citizens.

  2. For a more detailed analysis of relational accounts of justice see, inter alia, Sangiovanni (2007), Armstrong (2009), and Wollner (2010).

  3. This principle states that: ‘if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it’ (Singer 1972: 235).

  4. As a more moderate rival to Singer’s principle of Sacrifice, the Principle of Sympathy presented by Miller says that: ‘One’s underlying disposition to respond to neediness as such ought to be sufficiently demanding that giving which would express greater underlying concern would impose a significant risk of worsening one’s life, if one fulfilled all further responsibilities; and it need not to be any more demanding than this’ (13).

  5. I thank a referee for prompting this interpretation of my argument.

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  1. Washington University, Campus Box 1063, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63130-4899, USA

    Cristian Perez

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  1. Cristian Perez
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Perez, C. Global Justice and the Modern Empire. Res Publica 18, 277–282 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-012-9189-z

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