The Millennium Development Goals were effective from 2000 to 2015. Statistics show that most of the goals were met, and particularly success in the goal of reducing extreme poverty gained wide recognition. Despite the strong ethical language related to poverty reduction, there has been little analysis of the ethical significance of the MDG achievements. Since statistical and ethical definitions and representations of poverty never completely overlap, conclusions concerning ethical progress are not directly available from the statistics. This article shows how (...) this ethical significance can be analysed and what kinds of controversies and uncertainties relate to the issue. As part of this analysis, utilitarian issues, population ethics, and the social aspect of poverty are discussed. Keywords: poverty, Millennium Development Goals, statistics, ethics, poverty line. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of how normative theories on global poverty make assumptions regarding the geography of global poverty and global power constellations. I follow some recent global developments relevant to these assumptions, and ask whether normative theorizing should react to these developments. I argue that while accounts of global justice are not explicitly committed to any particular empirical ideas, the global justice discourse reflects the specific socioeconomic and geopolitical context in which it emerged, and that this context is (...) currently giving way to a somewhat different reality. I suggest some preliminary starting points for a normative theory which would reflect the contemporary conditions more accurately. These starting points include shifting the focus of theorizing from relations between rich and poor countries to inequalities on various levels, and the notion of a complex institutional site of global justice. (shrink)

Modern society is characterised by the constant production, commodification, and distribution of risks, which has also become an increasingly important political issue. Given the commodification and the resulting distributability of risks, risks have become an issue of distributive justice instead of mere reason for precautionary concerns. This is particularly pronounced in the case of financial risks. In this article, we analyze how choices related to distributive justice inform the systems of risk distribution. Our main aim is to apply the Rawlsian (...) notion of “division of moral labor” in the context of financial risks. By an analysis of the scope of financial risks, we will show that the libertarian choice of division of moral labour rests on an unnecessarily narrow idea of the scope of the distribution of risks. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss the location of the sources of global poverty and injustice. I take it as granted that the members of the globally lowest income group live in unacceptable conditions and suffer from injustice. Yet the source of this injustice is a debatable question. Often the existing global institutions are seen as major causes behind this injustice. By taking the World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations as a practical example, I aim to show that blaming the institutions as (...) such can lead to misguided conclusions. The WTO, in fact, is quite just if one merely analyses its institutional structure. I argue that the major source of injustice are rather the prevailing power structures and the conduct of individual governments within this institutional framework, in other words the metaprocedural unfairness in the trade negotiations. I further argue that applications of Rawlsian theory of justice tend to be misleading at the global institutional level, as they focus disproportionately on the institutional structure, and tend to underestimate the relevance of the conduct of governments and the existing power structures, which allow powerful countries to use the institutional framework unjustly in their favour. (shrink)

Most of the ethical literature on extreme poverty suggests, that some, if not most, of the incomes of the residents of rich countries ought to be donated to the global poor. Yet complying with this ethical demand becomes increasingly more difficult as the changes in lifestyle in the (post)industrial north demand ever more consumption in order to obtain the necessities for survival in such societies. In this article, I will discuss Peter Singer's famous arguments for the ethical duty to donate (...) one's possessions, and elaborate the conception of needs prevalent in both Singer's theory and the theories of many of his critics. My argument is that we have to recognise a category of needs called 'social necessities' that are neither luxuries nor basic needs. This leads to two main conclusions: first, the space for ethical deliberation on whether to donate to life-saving purposes is socially conditioned; and second, ethical strategies of redistribution ought to be accompanied with institutional changes, which also concern the conditions in wealthy countries. (shrink)

This article focuses on the justification of taxation, in other words the principled rather than the technical aspect of taxation. We first show how democracy is on the one hand required for legitimate taxation, and how on the other hand democratic communities are dependent on taxation, and argue there is no vicious cirle. We then present a typology of ways of justifying taxation, according to which taxation can base its legitimacy on (1) meeting basic needs, (2) financing public goods, (3) (...) redistribution, or (4) (dis-)incentivising certain types of conduct. We then discuss the applicability of each of these types of justification on the global level, arguing that all of them do apply to the global level. The article further concludes that different normative justifications guide us towards different designs of taxation in practice, so the background justification has to be made clear, especially when designing new taxation systems. (shrink)