Many philosophers accept the idea that there are duties to promote or create just institutions. But are the addressees of such duties supposed to be individuals – the members of the citizenry? What does it mean for an individual to promote or create just institutions? According to the ‘Simple View’, the citizenry has a collective duty to create or promote just institutions, and each individual citizen has an individual duty (...) to do their part in this collective project. The simple view appears to work well with regard to – you guessed it – ‘simple’ scenarios but it is riddled with further questions and problems. In this chapter, we raise five problems for the Simple View: (a) We suggest that one cannot develop a view concerning the citizenry’s duty to promote just institutions in isolation from a conception of the ontological relationship between the state and its citizens; (b) We argue that it is not obvious that the citizenry is the right entity to be attributed duties in the first place; (c) We show that a plausible account of collective duties to promote just institutions must not remain silent on the complexities and difficulties amorphous, unorganized group face in vis-à-vis collective action; (d) We contend that without allocation principles for contributory duties amongst the citizenry, or – alternatively – a method for practical deliberation that is action-guiding in collective action contexts, the claim that the citizens have a collective duty to promote just institutions remains moot; and, finally, (e) We demonstrate that the problem of reasonable disagreement is a serious threat to a collective duty to promote or create just institutions – it potentially undermines such a duty altogether and allows for conflicting contributory duties amongst the citizenry. We hope that our discussion will ultimately help improve existing theories and conceptual frameworks with a view to better understanding citizens’ obligations to promote justice under non-ideal conditions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Drawing upon John Rawls's framework inThe Law of Peoples,this paper argues that MNEs have a responsibility to promote well-ordered social and political institutions in host countries that lack them. This responsibility is grounded in a negative duty not to cause harm. In addition to addressing the objection that promoting well-ordered institutions represents unjustified interference by MNEs, the paper provides guidance for managers of MNEs operating in host countries that lack just institutions. The paper argues (...) for understanding corporate responsibility in relation to the specific institutional environment in which MNEs operate. (shrink)

In this chapter, we turn our attention to the effects of the attention economy on our ability to act autonomously as a group. We begin by clarifying which sorts of groups we are concerned with, which are structured groups (groups sufficiently organized that it makes sense to attribute agency to the group itself). Drawing on recent work by Purves and Davis (2022), we describe the essential roles of trust (i.e., depending on groups to fulfill their commitments) and trustworthiness (i.e., the (...) property of a group that makes trusting them fitting) in autonomous group action, with particular emphasis on democratic institutions (which we view as group agents) and democratic legitimacy (which depends on trust and trustworthiness). We then explain how engagement maximization promotes polarization, which is detrimental to trust and trustworthiness and, in turn, democratic legitimacy and democratic institutions. We close by considering what groups might do to protect themselves from the threat posed to them by the attention economy. (shrink)

Recent discussions in the just war literature suggest that soldiers have a duty to assume certain risks in order to protect the lives of all innocent civilians. I challenge this principle of risk by arguing that it is justified neither as a principle that guides the conduct of combat soldiers, nor as a principle that guides commanders in the US military. I demonstrate that the principle of risk fails on the first account because it requires soldiers both to (...) violate their strict duty of obedience and loyalty and to exceed their special obligations to protect their fellow comrades, the state, the state's constituents and other protected civilians. I then illustrate that the principle of risk fails on the second account since it conflicts with the commander's primary obligation to protect and promote the welfare and lives of his or her soldiers. I conclude by arguing that we cannot reasonably expect soldiers and commanders to adhere to the principle of risk until there is a radical, institutional-level transformation of militaristic goals, values, strategies, policies, warrior codes and expectations of service members in the US Armed Forces. (shrink)

What is the significance of asserting that certain agents, be they individual or collective ones, have a duty to create just institutions at a global level? It might appear none. For many agree that there is no global authority to coordinate compliance with the duty. Hence, it is up to individual agents to decide how to comply. If this is the correct account of the duty to create just institutions, then one can say (...) that significant global justice projects depend on insignificant duty to realize them. The state’s duty is indeterminate, however, only on the supposition that authoritative institutions are necessary to secure coordination among different agents. The dissertation challenges this fundamental assumption in two steps. First, I investigate the practical relevance of conventions for solving coordination problems. By building on the works of Hume and Lewis, I show how individuals in the state of nature could have coordinated their actions by conventions up until a point when a government could have emerged. I argue that similar considerations apply to relations among states. I identify relevant similarities between conventions creating a government and international customary law. Moreover, I argue that international customary law is a global governing convention since it prescribes how rules that bind all states are to be made. The second step in my argument concerns the normative assessment of conventions. I argue that conventions are essential for the demands of justice as long as they enable compliance with the demands. Not all conventions, however, do so. I put forward the principle of salience to identify those practices that play such a role. The salient practices determine the state’s duty to create a just world order. Ceteris paribus, the duty is not indeterminate after all. Consequently, current coordination problems that arise among states should not be seen as a normal consequence of states’ rational and self-interested behavior in the absence of a global authority; instead, the coordination problems amount to the violation of the duty to create a just world order. The major implication of the argument is that we should replace the Hobbesian framework for thinking about the nature of states as well as how they relate to one another by the Humean one. Thus, instead of insisting on states’ consent and necessity of a centralized authority to coordinate actions, we should pay more attention to the habitual behavior of states as well as the role conventions play in solving coordination problems among them. Importantly, the relevance of conventions to compliance with moral demands does not make authoritative institutions obsolete. The argument of this dissertation is modest – it only asserts that conventions can coordinate actions in the process of transitioning toward more centralized forms of global authority. As opposed to the pessimistic outlook of the Hobbesian framework, the Humean one makes room for hope that the change of the present unjust conditions is possible. (shrink)

This paper provides an introductory discussion of questions about three moral duties in the context of global poverty: the duty to aid; the duty not to harm; and the duty to promote just global institutions.

The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 5 A states that the maternal mortality ratio has to be reduced to three-quarters between 1990 and 2015. The target for India is a maternal mortality ratio of 109/100,000 live births. The Janani Suraksha Yojna (JSY) (Maternal Protection Scheme) is a centrally sponsored conditional cash transfer scheme to promote institutional deliveries and thus ensure safe delivery and reduce maternal mortality. The JSY scheme and its various evaluations were reviewed. The Tannahill’s ethical framework was applied (...) to the JSY and analyzed. Evaluations have shown that the JSY has significantly increased institutional deliveries. The public health system is not fully geared up for delivering good quality maternal health services. Thus encouraging women to go to them violates the principle of doing good. There are several barriers for availing the scheme. Procuring the certificates to meet eligibility can be difficult. The women do not have power over the cash incentive. There are large inequities in access to the JSY scheme based on socioeconomic status, caste and education. The accountability mechanisms for the scheme are weak at the grassroots level. Without an overall improvement in health system and awareness among women, the JSY cannot be said to empower the women in a sustainable way. In order, that the increases in institutional deliveries due to JSY are more than just a Hawthorne effect, which is a change in behavior just due to the fact that the population is being closely observed and intervened, there is a need to bridge the ethical gaps in the program to make it an empowering, sustainable, accountable and just one. (shrink)

This article start from two opposing intuitions in the environmental duties debate. On the one hand, if our lifestyle causes environmental harm, then we have a duty to reduce that impact through lifestyle changes. On the other hand, many people share the intuition that environmental duties cannot demand to alter our lifestyle radically for environmental reasons. These two intuitions underlie the current dualism in the environmental duties debate: those arguing for lifestyle changes and those arguing that our duties are (...) limited to promoting just environmental institutions. The paper has two goals: first, to grasp the underlying reasons for the two intuitions, and, second, to provide a proposal that integrates both intuitions. The paper consists of two main parts. The first part examines the ‘our-duties-should-be-limited’ intuition. Two interpretations are discussed, one under the title ‘what I do make no difference’, dealing with causality and collective action, and one under the title ‘my duty cannot be to change my lifestyle completely’, which discusses demandingness, fairness and value conflict. The second part shows how the ‘lifestyle-matters’ intuition can still play an important role. This part consists of two sections, one on ‘how to make a difference’, which deals with the idea of a cooperative ethos, and the other with ‘why lifestyle matters’, discussing expressive rationality and integrity. These ideas allow giving an important place to lifestyle duties, while avoiding the possible counterproductive effect of a private duties account. (shrink)

The natural duty theory holds that "we have a natural duty to support the laws and institutions of a just state" (Jeremy Waldron). We owe this not because we ever promised to support these laws and institutions, nor because fair play requires we support the cooperative ventures from which we receive benefits. The claim is that we have a general duty to promote institutions that do something justice requires wherever these institutions (...) may be, a duty that does not depend on our having special ties to these institutions, special ties of the sort we have to the institutions of our own government. I argue that we do not need to appeal to the idea of a natural duty to justify compliance with many laws. For example, New Zealanders must not murder, rape, or steal while in France, not because they have a duty to obey laws of a just state, but because it is wrong to murder, rape, or steal. If the natural duty theory is taken to be a statement of the conditions necessary for an obligation to exist, it would wrongly conclude there is no duty to obey laws against murder or rape in a state whose institutions and laws are not just. A second class of laws reflect not moral judgments but, rather, local conventions, conventions that are morally arbitrary but which may be useful in coordinating action. For example, New Zealanders visiting France must drive on the right side of the road, as dictated by French convention. Here, too, the natural duty theory fails to provide a suitable account of the relation noncitizens have to such laws. Our reasons for driving on the right side of the road when this is accepted convention have nothing to do with the justice of the institutions of the state. To flout this convention is not to undermine justice since there is nothing just or unjust about driving on one side of the road or another. I question the advantages of the natural duty theory, especially in light of important ambiguities in the theory. (shrink)

When weighing up which inhaler to prescribe, a doctor may prioritise a patient’s preferences over the expected harms from the associated carbon emissions. Parker argues that this is wrong.1 Doctors have a pro-tanto duty to switch from a high-carbon metered-dose inhaler (MDI) to a low-carbon dry-powdered inhaler (DPI)—even though this provides no direct patient benefit—unless switching would undermine trust or significantly worsen a patient’s health. He goes on to state that even if DPIs are more expensive for the National (...) Health Service (NHS) then this is justified so long as it does not ‘significantly threaten’ the NHS’ ability to protect and promote health. This may appear to be a radical proposal, challenging the ethical principles of autonomy, health entitlements and justly distributed resources. However, we will claim that it is only radical in so far as one perceives (A) patient autonomy and healthcare entitlements as existing within a vacuum, unrelated to other foundational ethics concerns and (B) the health consequences of a given healthcare budget are limited solely to the designated recipients rather than all affected parties. Here, we test the claim that our responsibility for promoting patient autonomy …. (shrink)

Just war theorists who argue that war is morally justified under certain circumstances infer implicitly that establishing the military institutions needed to wage war is also morally justified. In this paper, I mount a case in favor of a standing military establishment: to the extent that going to war is a way to discharge duties to protect fellow citizens and distant strangers from grievous harms, we have a duty to set up the institutions that enable us (...) to discharge that duty. I then respond to four objections drawn from Ned Dobos's recent book Ethics, Security, and the War-Machine. (shrink)

We sought to expand on the concept of the moral self to include not just the duty to develop the moral self but the moral duty to develop the self in both moral and non-moral ways. To do this, we focused on how leaders can promote a climate in which individuals feel a sense of duty to develop themselves for the betterment of the team and organization. In our theoretical model, duty orientation plays a (...) key role in determining whether followers will seek performance feedback to develop their work selves. We hypothesized that followers with ethical leaders would experience a greater sense of duty to improve themselves and would therefore be more likely to seek and less likely to avoid leader feedback. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesized that duty orientation would mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and feedback-seeking/feedback-avoiding behavior, expert power would moderate the relationship between ethical leadership and duty orientation such that duty orientation would be higher when followers perceived their leader to be both highly ethical and competent, and expert power would moderate the indirect effect of ethical leadership on feedback-seeking/feedback-avoiding behavior through duty orientation. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 249 followers across two waves of data collection. Results suggest that ethical leadership and leader competence interact to drive followers’ duty orientation, thereby reducing followers’ feedback-avoiding behaviors. Further, ethical leadership had a direct positive relationship with followers’ feedback-seeking behaviors. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Do corporations have a duty to promote just institutions? Agreeing with Hsieh’s recent contribution, this article argues that they do. However, contrary to Hsieh, it holds that such a claim cannot be advanced convincingly only by reference to the negative duty to do no harm. Instead, such a duty necessarily must be grounded in positive obligation. In the search of a foundation for a positive duty for corporations to further just institutions, (...) Stephen Kobrin’s notion of “private political authority” offers a promising connecting point. Political authority implies political responsibility; Political obligation, however, includes more than merely not doing any harm—it is essentially positive obligation. The implications of the new political responsibilities of multinational corporations may even go far beyond the particular duty to promote just institutions; they may be symptomatic for a much more profound shift from an individual to a collective age. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Do corporations have a duty to promote just institutions? Agreeing with Hsieh’s recent contribution, this article argues that they do. However, contrary to Hsieh, it holds that such a claim cannot be advanced convincingly only by reference to the negative duty to do no harm. Instead, such a duty necessarily must be grounded in positive obligation. In the search of a foundation for a positive duty for corporations to further just institutions, (...) Stephen Kobrin’s notion of “private political authority” offers a promising connecting point. Political authority implies political responsibility; Political obligation, however, includes more than merely not doing any harm—it is essentially positive obligation. The implications of the new political responsibilities of multinational corporations may even go far beyond the particular duty to promote just institutions; they may be symptomatic for a much more profound shift from an individual to a collective age. (shrink)

Background:Nurses must balance their perceived duty to care against their perceived risk of harm to determine their willingness to report during disaster events, potentially creating an ethical dilemma and impacting patient care.Research aim:The purpose of this study was to investigate nurses’ perceived duty to care and whether there were differences in willingness to respond during disaster events based on perceived levels of duty to care.Research design:A cross-sectional survey research design was used in this study.Participants and research context:Using (...) a convenience sample with a snowball technique, data were collected from 289 nurses throughout the United States in 2017. Participants were recruited through host university websites, Facebook, and an American Nurses Association discussion board.Ethical considerations:Institutional review board approval was obtained from the University of Texas at Tyler and the University of Arkansas.Findings:Analysis of willingness to report to work based on levels of perceived duty to care resulted in the emergence of two groups: “lower level of perceived duty to care group” and “higher level of perceived duty to care group.” The most discriminating characteristics differentiating the groups included fear of abandonment by co-workers, reporting because it is morally the right thing to, and because of imperatives within the Nursing Code of Ethics.Discussion:The number of nurses in the lower level of perceived duty to care group causes concern. It is important for nursing management to develop strategies to advance nurses’ safety, minimize nurses’ risk, and promote nurses’ knowledge to confidently work during disaster situations.Conclusion:Level of perceived duty to care affects nurses’ willingness to report to work during disasters. Primary indicators of low perceived duty to care are amenable to actionable strategies, potentially increasing nurses’ perceived duty to provide care and willingness to report to work during disasters. (shrink)

Making research data readily accessible during a public health emergency can have profound effects on our response capabilities. The moral milieu of this data sharing has not yet been adequately explored. This article explores the foundation and nature of a duty, if any, that researchers have to share data, specifically in the context of public health emergencies. There are three notable reasons that stand in opposition to a duty to share one’s data, relating to: (i) data property and (...) ownership, (ii) just distribution of benefits and burdens and (iii) the contemporary ethos of science. We argue each reason can be successfully met with corresponding rationale in favour of data sharing. Further support for data sharing has been echoed in policies of health agencies, funding bodies and academic institutions; in documents on the ethical conduct of biomedical research; and in discussions on the nature of public health. From this, we ascertain that sharing data is the morally sound default position. This article then highlights the key roles reciprocity and solidarity play in supporting the practice of data sharing. We conclude with recommendations to regard public health research data as a common-pool resource in order to build a framework for stable data sharing management. (shrink)

Just war theory is dominated by two positions. According to the traditional view, combatants both on the just and the unjust side have an equal right to fight, which is not affected by the justice of the cause pursued by their state. According to a recent revisionist account, only combatants fighting for a just cause have such right. David Estlund has offered a sophisticated account that aims to reconcile these two views by looking at our duty (...) to obey the order of democratic political institutions. The article criticizes Estlund’s account and points at an important to be learned from it. (shrink)

According to a prominent argument, citizens in unjust societies have a duty to resist injustice. The moral and political principles that ground the duty to obey the law in just or nearly just conditions, also ground the duty to resist in unjust conditions. This argument is often applied to a variety of unjust conditions. In this essay, I critically examine this argument, focusing on conditions involving institutionally entrenched and socially normalised injustice. In such conditions, the (...) issue of citizens’ duties to resist is complicated. I conclude by considering how my discussions may clarify a contemporary problem about engaging in resistance to aid potential migrants who have been turned away by states in accordance with widely accepted rules. (shrink)

ABSTRACTReceived wisdom in most democracies is that voting should be seen as a political freedom that citizens have a right to exercise at their discretion. But I propose that we have a duty to vote, albeit a duty to vote well: with knowledge and a sense of impartiality. Fulfillment of this obligation would contribute to the epistemic advantages of democracy, and would thereby instantiate the duty to promote and support just institutions.

Photo by Jonathan Ford on Unsplash ABSTRACT Since 2008, an average of twenty million people per year have been displaced by weather events. Climate migration creates a special setting for a duty to rescue. A duty to rescue is a moral rather than legal duty and imposes on a bystander to take an active role in preventing serious harm to someone else. This paper analyzes the idea of expanding a duty to rescue to climate migration. We (...) address who should have the duty and to whom the duty should extend. The paper discusses ways to define and apply the duty to rescue as well as its limitations, arguing that it may take the form of an ethical duty to prepare. INTRODUCTION Climate migration creates a special setting for a duty to rescue. A duty to rescue is a moral rather than legal duty and imposes on a bystander to take an active role in preventing serious harm to someone else. Examples of circumstances range from person-to-person intimate rescue to saving those in poverty, even in distant parts of the world.[1] Since 2008, an average of twenty million people per year have been displaced by weather events.[2] Circumstances like being thrust from homes under the threat of fire, mudslide, and flooding vary greatly from long-term changes like land becoming too arid for crops or temperatures increasing annually gradually pushing up the number of heat-related deaths, with the area slowly becoming uninhabitable. Imminence in fleeing affects resettling and need for rescue with important implications for how the duty to rescue might apply. This paper reevaluates the ethical framing of the duty to rescue and, while it is arguably a stretch, applies it to climate migration. Climate migration has become common and is expected to increase due to rises in sea level, increases in weather events that make areas uninhabitable, and changes to land that preclude farming or other necessary land uses. We argue that a duty to rescue may help highlight who has moral obligations to whom. Because the problem is so large in scope, we suggest a change in the ethical limits to humans' duty to rescue other humans who are in distress. We imagine an expansion or extension of the duty to rescue to meet some of the basic needs created by climate migration. Yet how it should expand, and how much depend on ethical framing and practical limitations. l. Expanding the Geographical Boundaries Two commonly recognized emergencies, Hurricane Katrina in the case of weather events and the current COVID-19 pandemic, provide a historical and current backdrop to evaluate ethical obligations as more disasters displace people. A significant reassessment of the ethical scope of an obligation to rescue in the case of weather events will be limited by the ability to render aid to those in distress in the case of a planet-wide weather catastrophe. The problems may overwhelm the ability to rescue or the reasonableness of attempting rescue. The extent of the moral obligation borne by humans to other humans in the case of a weather event has been largely defined by its locality and limited geographic influence. Whether we are imagining the scope of ethical obligation in the case of hurricane, flood, tornado, drought, or wildfire events, the perceived ethical obligation is significantly defined by the limited impact of these weather events on people outside the zone of the weather event's direct impact, yet close to that zone. A hurricane affecting New Orleans will not have immediate impact on the residents of California or even those on the northeast coast of the United States until a later time. Wildfires in the Pacific Northwest do not impair the ability of those in the rest of the country to come forward with assistance. But as climate migration crosses international borders, and climate events occur simultaneously in many regions, a more expansive duty to rescue may provide the ethical impulse to help those who live afar or migrate long distances. In this respect, the need for help in the event of widespread climate migration due to global warming is more like a pandemic than a weather event. Its broad impact area diminishes the capability of nearly the entire balance of the human population to help due to those populations' awareness that they will, in short order, have the same need for the same resources, from the same cause. Those living near current flood zones may find their historically safe havens are also a flood zone. Those previously best positioned to rescue may find themselves also needing to relocate. Thus, we may observe the need for new rescuers. ll. The Rule of Rescue The Rule of Rescue as defined by Al Jonsen describes the moral impetus or knee jerk reaction to save identifiable people facing death.[3] A duty to rescue has since been expanded beyond imminent death and beyond the near and identifiable. But there are limitations. For example, by most accounts, the ethical duty tends not to require extreme bodily risk or financial depletion. In comparing Good Samaritans to humanitarians, Scott M. James argues the duty to rescue arises from unique dependence, but the ethical obligation to help strangers through humanitarian aid is of a different nature.[4] The wrongness of failing to help is arguably more egregious when one is in a unique position to help. Like in the tragedy of the commons, where there is no unique positioning, when the global community is called upon to help, each individual in it may feel less obliged to do so. Climate migration falls in between—it requires helping strangers, yet it may move forward without anyone seeing themselves as uniquely positioned to help until those strangers become part of communities, at which time, there may be more moral justification to help a community member in need. Generally, arguments about Good Samaritans hinge on extraordinary acts, praiseworthy because they are acts of compassion, not obligation. Now all US states have Good Samaritan laws[5] which protect helpers from liability for help gone wrong or for a failure to succeed once engaged in an act of rescue. Extraordinary help as a moral good is thus somewhat encouraged through legal protection, but not imposed. Conversely, jobs like firefighting, search and rescue, and emergency medical care tend to oblige employees to take on risks that would be extraordinary if undertaken by the average bystander, yet they are rendered ordinary rescue as part of the job. Three states, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Vermont have a broad duty to rescue, adding legal considerations to an otherwise moral conundrum. The laws do not require bystanders to take on risk for the sake of rescuing strangers.[6] The moral duty will require looking beyond law, but it is unclear how the moral duty to rescue should be distributed in the case of climate migration. A bare minimum would prevent taking advantage of newcomers, paying sub-minimum wage, and discriminating against them. Yet such a minimum is hardly rescue. lll. An Ethical Rather than Legal Duty The difficulty in defining the duty to rescue as a legal obligation is that it is difficult to determine the extent of risk a rescuer ought to be required to take. The nature of this ethical duty is also arguably tied to the experiences of both the rescuer and the rescued. There are subjective aspects like what someone perceives as a danger that make it difficult to write enforceable laws requiring rescue. It is one thing to expect a rescuer to step into several inches of relatively warm water to lift a person lying face down in a pond and enable them to breathe. It is something altogether different to expect that rescuer to dive into frigid water and attempt to extricate someone trapped in a submerged automobile. As the legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart observed, it is always easier to define application of the core intention of any rule, whether law or ethical norm. It is more difficult to create legal certainty about how the law applies to what he described as “penumbra circumstances”. In the case of a hurricane, it is easier to define what surplus resources are available in areas geographically remote from the impact of the storm and demand, as a moral obligation, that those nearby but outside the area provide assistance. It is more difficult to obligate people, organizations, or governments to supply a quantity of medication or some number of ventilators to an adjacent community when they expect to imminently need them for their own community. In the early stages of climate migration, the ethics of extreme weather event assistance, a common application of the duty to rescue, will be useful and appropriate. The rising sea levels first experienced by island nations in the South Pacific[7] will not render those living in other coastal communities, those with greater available “high ground”, unable to supply resources to those in need. But when sea level rise and climate change affect more communities simultaneously, albeit in varying degree, the task of defining what response is ethically obligatory becomes increasingly complicated. Pinpointing the obligations of those communities which are resource rich to those communities which are resource deprived, and of those partly affected to those more severely affected may become necessary. The limitations of the traditional duty to rescue could expand to meet the needs. lV. Contribution to the Problem Many argue that the duty to rescue may depend on any appropriate claim of those needing rescue. One issue is whether preferential claims among those who can identify the source of the harm should call for a greater duty or whether everyone in need should be approached as like candidates for rescue, shaping the duty as equal across those on the receiving end. As climate change does have human-made causes, there are strong arguments to impose a greater ethical duty on any entity that caused the climate-related problems leading to the mass exodus. While the global north is often implicated in pollution that causes migration, industries like energy, transportation, and agriculture are tied to climate change and associated with significant greenhouse gas emissions.[8] Practices like directing agriculture to less sustainable single crop growth generally made land less farmable. Yet it is difficult to place blame and identify specific causal relationships as most migration is due to many factors. A movement toward greater accountability can be reframed as a greater duty to rescue, a duty to engage in the extraordinary. The fossil fuel industry, for example, should have a larger obligation than the average person. Similarly, some may argue anyone unjustly enriching themselves while contributing to climate change or people who over-consume have an elevated duty to rescue.[9] Climate change lawsuits demonstrate an eagerness to hold governments and corporations accountable, despite difficulty proving causation. V. The Most Vulnerable One ethical dimension of climate migration that remains unexplored is how a duty to rescue applies to vulnerable populations who stand to be left behind or unable to migrate without assistance. Researchers from the Global North working across the Global South are increasingly observing the phenomenon of ethics dumping, where the research ethics of some countries are imposed on research subjects in other countries.[10] In that vein, rescuers should be careful not to impose unwelcome cultural standards or exploit people who are in the process of migrating. There is a gap in discussions reflecting voices that have been left out. The duty to rescue is incomplete without an attempt to understand the ethical experiences of those being rescued. The actual people affected by climate migration who are the least likely to have the means to migrate, or to do so without extreme hardship, should have a voice informing the global community including those in a position to carry out rescue. People who have the means and are young and healthy may easily make decisions to avoid the catastrophic consequences that climate migration brings. However, what about those who are left behind? For example, especially recognizing cultural differences, the homeless community, disabled community, refugees, the elderly community, and women[11] and children may suffer differently and call for more attention. In some parts of the world, human rights are severely constrained. An ethical duty to rescue, with many considerations and variables, may be more justified in the case of those most in need. As climate migration continues and increases significantly, it may be reasonable to ask the local and global community to focus on those least well positioned to migrate successfully. In this context, the use of phenomenology to understand the lived experiences of those migrating, sometimes termed “ethical experiences”, may help flesh out how a duty to rescue takes shape. The discussion of duty and obligation requires an articulation of the ethical experiences (how the local community in need of rescue views the proposed rescue). Then, the obligation to interpret the duty as ‘one shall not’ or ‘one must’ can be focused on the migrants’ needs rather than the rescuers’ feelings of obligation.[12] A revised theory of the duty to rescue taking into account the asymmetrical experiences of communities involved could ensure that the needs of people whose living situations, gender, ethnicity, age, or race impact their ability to even begin the migration process are considered. In this discussion, the rescuing is directed toward communities /collectives of persons migrating, whether at once or across a period of time. Often, the climate migrant may not be in a state to articulate the nature of this event when it happens, given its subjective proximity. Yet, when communities are given the space and opportunity to articulate their shared values, the ethical action of rescue derives its meaningfulness from the community rather than the rescuers. In other words, allowing climate migrants to explain their feelings can add complexity to what some see as a binary receiver-giver (of rescue) dynamic. This is necessary because the concept of vulnerable populations is fraught with problematic assumptions. There have been various definitions and criteria to determine what would constitute vulnerable populations.[13] For example, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change[14] identifies and assesses vulnerable populations. These criteria may be helpful. However, they do not provide the full picture. Rather than identifying categorical criteria of vulnerable populations, engaging with people who are experiencing climate migration and listening to their current experiences and concerns helps determine need. Knowing what people need may prevent the kneejerk reaction to label people who are quite resilient yet have appropriate needs “vulnerable”. Proceeding with caution is important because the duty to rescue has hierarchical underpinnings of "us" and "them." Often when people swoop in to save, there are good and bad consequences of the intervention. We should proceed with caution because often the helper misses the actual needs of those in need. The only way to combat this would be to make sure that people are empowered to inform those agencies that are able to help. In addition to more practical approaches, large scale oral histories could allow those who have migrated already to share their experiences. It would be important to capture the lived experiences of people who are already experiencing the consequences of climate migration or of other migration like that due to political or economic extreme events. These experiences could shape our analysis of whether people in fact wish for rescue. If so, further conversations can determine best actions as well as give important insight into what resources might be necessary to empower people now and in the future. Vl. A Duty to Rescue as a Duty to Prepare If we view Good Samaritans as going above and beyond, then a duty to rescue, something ethically compelled, must bring rescue out of the framework of charity and place it in the context of humanity and obligations. Such a view would also support expanding the geographical reach of the otherwise more proximate duty. The duty may be stronger and take shape in a more workable way if it applies to preparing places expecting to see an influx of people due to climate migration and to helping those most in need. The duty may arise out of expectations of what type of community the place welcoming those migrating due to climate should be—does it want to offer good housing, schooling, and medical care as well as economic opportunity to new people? And if so, at what cost, or with which risks? If the newcomers are viewed as community members rather than strangers, a model of acceptance may lead to better preparation. Some considerations like whether the actions will reasonably help the persons in need of rescue[15] will shape the application of a duty to rescue in the context of climate migration. Similarly, ensuring that people have the chance to articulate their values may help communities support the newcomers. New relationships should not be defined as migrant and rescuer. Voluntariness in participation and not forcing any action deemed rescue would help ensure the human rights of those migrating. In the United States, President Biden issued an executive order addressing impending climate migration steeped in a duty to prepare by making plans for resettlement and to address the impact of climate migration.[16] Vll. At What Risk? As we investigate the ethical obligations to meet even basic needs, we must also ask what level of risk is ethically compelled. There is an extraordinary need to integrate newcomers successfully, but it is difficult to stretch an ethical duty to rescue to require all the prerequisites for successful climate migration. Even defining success would create deep ethical arguments. As observed in almost all migrations, extraordinary charitable acts may be the key to success, while an ethical duty to rescue must try to require the important government and community-based basics and ensuring respect for human rights. That is, the migrating people should be rescued from circumstances that contradict basic human rights. Rather than comparing communities to bystanders, mere places where people will arrive and need to hash out how to find housing, jobs, education, and opportunity, a duty of preparation may be the key to rescue those disenfranchised by migration. There are cultural, personal, physical, psycho-social, and geopolitical issues surrounding how to best help those needing to permanently relocate. Ethics arguments will certainly range from “do nothing”, which may fail people, to “do everything”, which could waste taxpayer money in futile over-preparation while failing to actually help. Communities must avoid planning exclusively for one scenario only to have it not take place. Striking the balance, a duty to rescue as it could apply to climate migration should set goals of societal integration, and providing the basics like education, housing, food, health care, and job opportunity, the precursors to flourishing. Recommending the extraordinary, morally preferred but perhaps not compulsory, when charitable actors are participating, or when wrongdoers are compensating, may be more workable than seeing the duty to rescue as compelling people or local governments to take on significant financial and personal risk for newcomers. While humanitarian ethics supports helping everyone, it is likely that people who resettle in advance of a need to flee will find themselves with more choices and opportunities. Help is warranted for those with more dire needs. Preparing for them may do just that. Vlll. Rescue Prior to Migration and Rescue in the Process of Resettlement The duty to enable the migration in the first-place hints to the inadequacy of a duty to prepare. The traditional duty to rescue perhaps steps in if rescue looks like those geographically just out of harm's way rescuing those in danger. That resembles the traditional moral requirement, or duty to rescue according to the Rule of Rescue. Humanitarian aid typically provided by many institutions makes sense and is in place, although financial support for additional humanitarian aid is always needed. Despite having moved to purportedly more capable communities, migrant communities may be able to develop more egalitarian orders of living. Rather than continually being identified as having been rescued, it is important to make sure people keep or make social ties during and after migration. Immigrants often face social isolation.[17] Small shifts in gestural language also have the potential to welcome people and show they are valued. For instance, some migrants may not like questions like “Where are you from?” and “What brings you here?” as they emphasize differences over fitting in. CONCLUSION The ethical duty to rescue should be expanded to better match those in need of relocation with a welcome environment and the resources needed to achieve success and fully integrate socially and culturally. Expanding a dialogue that includes the voices of people who have recently migrated whether due to violence, poverty, or climate, could properly frame the extent of the duty. If we are to apply the duty of rescue to climate migration, rescuers should avoid labeling people vulnerable, dependent, or needy, although there is reason to focus on those whose needs are the most dire. A soft duty to rescue people during the course of climate migration can come in the form of preparation. People will need help finding housing, education, access to food, and employment. Ultimately, to help them help themselves may be the best goal. While the obligations should be borne differently by people, whether due to a special responsibility, or a special relationship that creates a clearer duty, the global community must prepare for its role in rescuing those displaced by climate events. By helping those displaced at the start of the climate migration process according to a more commonly held notion of the duty to rescue, and by preparing to incorporate newcomers successfully according to an expanded duty to rescue, effectively a duty to prepare, countries that take on climate refugees may find themselves rewarded by the cultural diversity and workplace talents that people bring. A duty to those at a distance is a reasonable expansion of the duty to rescue. But what one ought to do in the global community varies somewhat from the traditional Rule of Rescue. - [1] Singer, P. (1972). Famine, Affluence, and Morality. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1(3): 229-43. [2] Irfan, U. (2022, March 16). Why We Still Don’t Yet Know How Bad Climate Migration Will Get. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2022/3/16/22960468/ipcc-climate-change-migration-migrant-refugee, citing the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2022). Sixth Assessment Report, Climate Change 2022, Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/ [3] McKie, J., Richardson, J. (2003) The Rule of Rescue. Social Science & Medicine, 56(12): 2407-2419. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(02)00244-7. [4] James, S.M. (2007). Good Samaritans, Good Humanitarians. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 24(3):238-254. [5] Overview of Good Samaritan laws. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/good-samaritan-law-states [6] Fifield, J. (2017, Sept. 19). Why It’s Hard to Punish ‘Bad Samaritans’. Stateline Blog, Pew Charitable Trusts, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/09/19/why-its-hard-to-punish -bad-samaritans [7] Cassella, C. (2019). There’s a Climate Threat Facing Pacific Islands That’s More Dire Than Losing Land, Science Alert, https://www.sciencealert.com/pacific-islanders-are-in-a-climate-crisis-as-rising-sea-levels-threaten -water; Hassan, H. R., and Cliff, V. (2019). For Small Island Nations, Climate Change is not a Threat. It’s Already Here, World Economic Forum, https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/island-nations-maldives-climate-change/ [8] For example, Lyons, K. (2019). Australia Coal use is Existential threat to Pacific Islanders, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/australia-coal-use-is-existential-threat-to-pacific-is lands-says-fiji-pm [9] Cripps, E. (2013). Climate Change and the Moral Agent: Individual Duties in an Interdependent World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [10] Schroeder, D., Chatfield, K., Singh, M., Chennells, R., and Herissone-Kelly, P.. Ethics Dumping and the Need for a Global Code of Conduct. In Cham. (Ed.)(2019). Equitable Research Partnerships. SpringerBriefs in Research and Innovation Governance. Springer. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15745-6_1 [11] Giudice L.C., Llamas-Clark E.F., DeNicola N., Pandipati, S., Zlatnik, M.G., Decena, D.C.D., Woodruff, T.J., Conry, J.A. (2021). Climate Change, Women’s Health, and the Role of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Leadership, International J Gynecol Obstet, 155(3), 345-356. 10.1002/ijgo.13958 [12] See Ferrarello, S. and Zapien, N. (2020). Ethical Experience: A Phenomenology, Bloomsbury. (for understanding phenomenological determinants of ethical action). [13] McLeman, R.A., Hunter, L.M., (2010). Migration in the context of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change: insights from analogues. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Change, 1(3): 450-461. [14] Least Developed Countries Expert Group. (2018). Considerations Regarding Vulnerable Groups, Communities and Ecosystems in the Context of the National Adaptation Plans: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. [15] Jecker, N.S. 2013. "The Problem with Rescue Medicine." J Med Philos, 38(1):64-81. [16] White House Report. (February 9, 2021), Executive Order (E.O.) 14013, “Rebuilding and Enhancing Programs to Resettle Refugees and Planning for the Impact of Climate Change on Migration.” (calls on the National Security Advisor to prepare a report on climate change and its impact on migration. “This report marks the first time the U.S. Government is officially reporting on the link between climate change and migration.” https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/27/executive-order-on-tackling -the-climate-crisis-at-home-and-abroad/ [17] Torres, J.M., Casey, J.A. (2017) The centrality of social ties to climate migration and mental health. BMC Public Health, 17: 600. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-017-4508-0. (shrink)

In this article I examine how reforming our international tax regime could be an important vehicle for realizing key aspects of global gender justice. Ensuring all,including and especially multinationals, pay their fair share of taxes is crucial to ensuring that all countries, especially developing countries, are able to fund education, job training, infrastructural development, programs which promote gender equity, and so forth, thereby enabling all countries to help themselves better. I discuss various positive proposals for levying global taxes. I (...) review why overtly gender-neutral taxes can sometimes have unintended gendered consequences, disproportionately burdening or benefiting individuals, according to their gender. Any endorsement of global taxes must take this concern into account. Fortunately there is good fit between the rationale for the Tobin tax and the way in which it can be harnessed to promote gender equity, so of the taxes discussed here, it emerges as one of the most promising. However, as I also argue, eliminating tax havens and blocking avenues that currently facilitate tax escape must also be part of the agenda to promote gender equity, given the vast amounts of revenue that currently escape taxation. In a context of globalization, fiscal policies cannot achieve equity (including gender equity) at national levels alone. Many concerns, such as clamping down on tax evasion and harmonizing corporate tax rates, can only effectively be tackled at a global level. As I also discuss, feasible arrangements for tackling such issues are available, as are mechanisms for collecting and disbursing funds in ways that promote accountability and compliance. Failing to reform our tax arrangements means that the basic institutional structure of the global economy is unjust and also involves gender injustice. Gender consciousness is indispensable for developing an adequate account of taxation justice and therefore a global institutional structure that is gender just. (shrink)

In this paper, I sketch a Kantian account of duties of rescue, which I take to be compatible with Kant’s theory. I argue that there is in fact no “trumping relation” between imperfect and perfect duties but merely that “latitude shrinks away” in certain circumstances. Against possible demandingness objections, I explain why Kant thought that imperfect duty must allow latitude for choice and argue that we must understand the necessary space for pursuing one’s own happiness as entailed by Kant’s (...) justification of one’s duty to promote other’s happiness. Nevertheless, becoming worthy of happiness has always priority over one’s own happiness, even when circumstances are such that we cannot secure our own happiness without seriously neglecting more pressing needs of other persons. I conclude that Kant’s moral theory calls for complementation by the political and juridical domain. Implementing just political institutions and creating satisfactorily well-ordered societies create an external world which is friendlier to our attempts to reconcile moral integrity and a happy human life. (shrink)

Contemporary accounts of the concept of exploitation can be grouped into camps that tie the wrongness of taking advantage of another person to: (1) the unfair division of benefits resulting from an interaction; (2) excessive benefits resulting from structural injustice; and (3) a failure of respect for others’ humanity. In practice, accounts of exploitation that focus on the fairness of benefits resulting from individual transactions and, to a lesser degree, unjust social and economic institutions have dominated the applied ethics (...) literature using the concept of exploitation. However, fairness-based accounts of exploitation have a difficult time explaining a common dimension of purportedly exploitative cases in the press and academic literature—namely the absolute deprivation of and/or experience of injustice by victims of exploitation. In this paper, I argue that a respect-based account can explain how exploitation arises both from individual interactions and against a backdrop of injustice. Specifically, our connections with one another and social and economic institutions specify the duty of beneficence and political responsibility to promote just institutions. Exploitation takes place when people fail to act on these specified obligations in favor of their own benefit. (shrink)

Many traditional arguments in favor of enhancement are consequentialist in nature. Many of the classic arguments against enhancement seem to have loosely Kantian origins. In this paper I offer a different interpretation of what a Kantian should be committed to with respect to enhancement by focusing on Kant's sometimes overlooked imperfect duty to cultivate our talents. I argue that in promoting an end that Kant thinks we have a duty to set, enhancing is more than just permissible, (...) but has morally weighty reasons behind it and would in part constitute a duty we owe to ourselves. This shows that Kantians have a unique position to add to debates about enhancement and positions Kant as pushing a view that is potentially more radical than even most ethicists friendly to enhancement, who might grant that enhancement is permissible in a wide array of cases, but often fall short of judging it part of a duty we owe to ourselves. (shrink)

Many important criticisms to the possibility of global justice are advanced following one or another operationalization of the Rawlsian concept of a basic structure. The purpose of this paper is twofold: i) to show that the existence of a global basic structure is irrelevant from the standpoint of justice; ii) to set the stage for a cosmopolitan theory of global justice that employs satisficing sufficientarianism as a distributive principle. One of the main contentions is that the institutional-interactional cut in the (...) recent literature should be transcended. That is, the site of justice should be extended to incorporate both the efficiency of discharging one’s duties through a just institutional scheme and the moral value of promoting a good state of affairs through one’s own efforts. In order to avoid the overdemandingness objection, however, the selected principles of justice ought to belong to the sufficientarian family. Towards the end of the paper I sketch one such theory, satisficing sufficientarianism. (shrink)

In his discussion of the duty of benevolence in §27 of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that agents have no obligation to promote their own happiness, for ‘this happens unavoidably’ (MS, AA 6:451). In this paper I argue that Kant should not have said this. I argue that Kant should have conceded that agents do have an obligation to promote their own happiness.

Climate change and other global environmental problems constitute a significant challenge to contemporary political philosophy, especially with respect to complacency. This paper assesses Rawls? theory, and argues for three conclusions. First, Rawls does not already solve such problems, and simple extensions of his theory are unlikely to do so. This is so despite the rich structure of Rawls? philosophy, and the appeal of some of its parts. Second, the most promising areas for extension ? the circumstances of justice, the (...) class='Hi'>duty to maintain and promote just institutions, and his vision of social development ? are those that have not yet been explored. Third, unfortunately, Rawls? views on these topics are both seriously underdeveloped, and largely stipulative. Hence, in trying to meet climate change, Rawlsians are more likely to add new theories to Rawls, and perhaps even to transform his original account, than to generate an approach ?from the inside out? (shrink)

Health care organization is entering a new age. Focus is increasingly shifting from individual health care institutions to interorganizational collaboration and health care networks. Much hope is set on such networks which have been argued to improve economic efficiency and quality of care. However, this does not automatically mean they are always ethically justified. A relevant question that remains is what ethical obligations or duties one can ascribe to these networks especially because networks involve many risks. Due to their (...) often amorphous and complex structure, collective responsibility and accountability may increase while individual responsibility goes down. We argue that a business ethics approach to ethical obligations for health care networks, is problematic and we propose to opt for a patient perspective. Using the classic four principles of biomedical ethics it is possible to identify specific ethical duties. Based on the principle of justice, health care networks have an ethical duty to provide just and fair access for all patients and to be transparent to patients about how access is regulated. The principle of nonmaleficence implies an obligation to guarantee patient safety, whereas the principle of beneficence implies an obligation for health care networks to guarantee continuity of care in all its dimensions. Finally, the principle of autonomy is translated into a specific obligation to promote and respect patient choice. Networks that fail to meet any of these conditions are suspect and cannot be justified ethically. Faced with daunting challenges, the health care system is changing rapidly. Currently many hopes ride on integrated care and broad health care networks. Such networks are the topic of empirical debate, but more attention should be given to the ethical aspects. Health care networks raise new and pressing ethical issues and we are in need of a framework for assessing how and when such networks are justified. (shrink)

Using the principles of John Rawls' theory of justice, this book offers an alternative political vision; one which describes a mode of governance that will enable communities to implement a sustainable and socially just future. Rawls described a theory of justice that not only describes the sort of society in which anyone would like to live but that any society can create a society based on just institutions. While philosophers have demonstrated that Rawls's theory can provide a (...) framework for the discussion of questions of environmental justice, the problem for many philosophical theories is that discussions of sustainable development open the need to address questions of ecological interdependence, historical inequality in past resource use and the recognition that we cannot afford to ignore the limitations of growth. These ideas do not fit in comfortably in standard discourse about theories of justice. In contrast, this book frames the discussion of global justice in terms of environmental sustainability. The author argues that these ideas can be used to develop a coherent political theory which reconciles cosmopolitan arguments and the non-cosmopolitan or nationalist arguments concerning social and environmental justice. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environment philosophy and ethics, moral and political philosophy, global studies and sustainable development. (shrink)

Background: Family members and healthcare providers play an integral role in a person’s assisted dying journey. Their own needs during the assisted dying journey are often, however, unrecognized and underrepresented in policies and guidelines. Circumstances under which people choose assisted dying, and relational contexts such as the sociopolitical environment, may influence the experiences of family members and healthcare providers. Ethical considerations: Ethics approval was not required to conduct this review. Aim: This scoping review aims to identify the relational influences on (...) the experiences of family members and healthcare providers of adults who underwent assisted dying and of those unable to access assisted dying due to the loss of capacity to consent. Methods: A literature search was conducted in four databases, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature and PsycINFO. The search retrieved 12,074 articles, a number narrowed down to 172 articles for full-text screening. Thirty-six articles met the established inclusion criteria. A feminist relational framework guided the data analysis. Results: Five key themes on the influences of family members’ and healthcare providers’ experiences throughout the assisted dying process were synthesized from the data. They include relationships as central to beginning the process, social and political influences on decision making, complex roles and responsibilities of family members and healthcare providers, a unique experience of death, and varying experiences following death. Conclusion: The feminist relational lens, used to guide analysis, shed light on the effect of the sociopolitical influences and the relationships among patients, families, and healthcare providers on each other’s experiences. Addressing the needs of the family members and healthcare providers is vital to improving the assisted dying process. Including families’ and healthcare providers’ needs within institutional policies and enhancing collaboration and communication among those involved could improve the overall experience. (shrink)

On what we may call the institutional approach to justice, the most important duty of justice that individuals have is the duty to establish just institutions when they are absent. How should we understand this institutional duty in relation to more personal moral actions, such as taking direct personal action to mitigate institutional failures? Is this institutional duty a necessary responsibility of justice? Is it sufficient? I will discuss this question in the context of (...) climate change: what responsibilities of justice do individual actors have when their state is not complying with an ideal of just emissions? Do they have the duty to do what they reasonably can to reduce their personal direct emissions, perhaps even picking up the slack of non-compliers? Or is their duty of justice primarily that of doing their part to establish a just regulatory framework? I will examine some options of personal responsibility in response to climate change and argue that the most important duty is that of working to bring about better institutions. Taking direct personal action can be helpful, but not when they distract us from working towards institutional reform. (shrink)

Kant argues that it is the duty of humanity to strive for an enduring peace between the nations. For Kant, political progress within each nation is essential to realizing lasting peace, and so one would expect him to view political intervention- defined as coercive interference by one nation, or some of its citizens, with the affairs of another nation in order to bring about political improvements in that nation-as justified in some cases.! Kant, however, explicitly rejects all intervention by (...) force, and some aspects of his work support an unqualified prohibition of political intervention. In this paper I will examine on which grounds, stated or inferred, Kant's practical philosophy upholds the absolute prohibition of political intervention, and conclude that, although these grounds are inadequate, they have the merit of pointing to important restrictions on justified political intervention. (shrink)

Many regard Kant’s account of the highest good as a failure. His inclusion of happiness in the highest good, in combination with his claim that it is a duty to promote the highest good, is widely seen as inconsistent. In this essay, I argue that there is a valid argument, based on premises Kant clearly endorses, in defense of his thesis that it is a duty to promote the highest good. I first examine why Kant includes (...) happiness in the highest good at all. On the basis of a discussion of Kant's distinction between 'good' and 'pleasant', and in light of his methodological comments in the second chapter of the Critique of Practical Reason, I explain how Kant’s conception of the good informs his conception of the highest good. I then argue that Kant's inclusion of happiness in the highest good should be understood in light of his claim that it is a duty to promote the happiness of others. In the final section of this essay, I reconstruct Kant’s argument for the claim that it is a duty to promote the highest good and explain in what sense this duty goes beyond observance of the Categorical Imperative. (shrink)

Taking Australia as a case study that is relevant to all countries where public integrity is an issue, this collection reviews a variety of existing efforts to understand, 'map' and evaluate the effectiveness of integrity policies and institutions, not just in the government sector but across all the major institutions of modern society. It will be of interest to those in governance, politics, law and public policy.

The Association of American Colleges & Universities has a guiding principle that presidents, chief academic officers, deans, and faculty at its member institutions can follow to cultivate diverse, inclusive, and equitable communities at their institutions. This principle constitutes the “Making Excellence Inclusive” initiative, which is a component of the AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise initiative. Taking the “Making Excellence Inclusive” initiative as my starting point, I challenge the way that diversity and inclusion seem to be conceived of (...) by many people at colleges and universities. I then imagine how genuinely inclusive and equitable communities can be cultivated at colleges and universities by taking social justice seriously. (shrink)

Clinicians and researchers can often rescue patients or research participants from serious harms. Indeed, they often have a duty to do so—a duty to rescue. Duties to rescue are frequently discussed in the medical ethics literature, but according to Tina Rulli and Joseph Millum they are under-theorised and more problematic than is normally acknowledged. Rulli and Millum outline two widely discussed conceptions of rescue duties: a so-called duty of easy rescue, applying to all moral agents (including healthcare (...) professionals), and the rule of rescue, applying specifically to institutions. They raise concerns about both. (shrink)

In many countries attention for fostering research integrity started with a misconduct case that got a lot of media exposure. But there is an emerging consensus that questionable research practices are more harmful due to their high prevalence. QRPs have in common that they can help to make study results more exciting, more positive and more statistically significant. That makes them tempting to engage in. Research institutions have the duty to empower their research staff to steer away from (...) QRPs and to explain how they realize that in a Research Integrity Promotion Plan. Avoiding perverse incentives in assessing researchers for career advancement is an important element in that plan. Research institutions, funding agencies and journals should make their research integrity policies as evidence-based as possible. The dilemmas and distractions researchers face are real and universal. We owe it to society to collaborate and to do our utmost best to prevent QRPs and to foster research integrity. (shrink)

According to the orthodox or humanist conception of human rights, individuals have a moral duty to promote the universal realization of human rights. However, advocates of this account express the implications of this duty in extremely vague terms. What does it mean when we say that we must promote human rights satisfaction? Does it mean that we must devote a considerable amount of our time and resources to this task? Does it mean, instead, that we must (...) make occasional donations to charities working to advance human rights realization? In this essay, I argue that this duty can only be constructed as imperfect. This means that it confers agent-relative discretion on us to decide when, how, and to what extent to advance the human rights of others. It also means that it is neither correlative with rights nor enforceable. As I will explain, the main reason for this is that any attempt to construct it as a perfect duty would infringe the dignity of the potential duty bearers and thereby undermine the very values that human rights practice aspires to serve. Finally, I will conclude by providing some guidelines for those who wish to comply with their imperfect duties to improve the situation of those whose human rights are in peril. (shrink)

It is natural to think of political philosophy as being concerned with reflection on some of the ways in which groups of human beings come together to confront together the problems that they face together: in other words, as the domain, par excellence, of collective action. From this point of view it might seem surprising that the notion of collective obligation rarely assumes centre-stage within the subject. If there are, or can be, collective obligations, then these must surely constrain the (...) ways in which we can act collectively. Indeed, one might even suspect that considerations about collective obligations ought to play a central role in demarcating the form that any legitimate form of political organization ought to take. -/- Elsewhere I have argued that we have good reasons for accepting the existence of global collective obligations - in other words, collective obligations which fall on the world’s population as a whole.(Wringe 2006, 2010, forthcoming, under review) For example, the existence of such obligations provides a plausible solution to a problem which is sometimes thought to arise if we think that individuals have a right to have their basic needs satisfied. In this paper, I shall argue that in many situations, forward-looking global obligations give rise to an obligation on individuals to work towards bringing into existence and support an institutional system which will enable their obligations to be met. Call such an obligation the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions.’ I shall also examine a significant challenge to this line of argument, which I call the ‘Pluralist Challenge’ One might suppose that the ‘Obligation to Promote Satisfactory Global Institutions’ could be met by providing strategic support to attempts to modify and extend existing international institutions. After all, creating new institutions is a difficult matter: perhaps it would be better, especially where stringent obligations are concerned, to concentrate on those institutions which we already have. On the other hand, existing international institutions are subject to a range of significant moral and ethical criticisms. It would simply be naïve to suppose that their existence of such institutions is based on an international consensus about what justice requires; and it is not clear how we could motivate individuals who have severe ethical reservations about the existence of such institutions, or why we should wish to. This suggests that those who think that there are global collective obligations, and that such obligations should play an important role in shaping how we think of international distributive justice are faced with a significant dilemma: either support a program of extending and strengthening existing institutions in a way which risks entrenching some existing forms of injustice; or commit oneself to a program of attempting to build new institutions which will have to compete with those institutions we have already and which are unlikely to be in a position to meet help us to discharge our collective obligations at any point in the near future. Neither option seems satisfactory. I shall argue that our response should be to look for plausible ethical constraints on how international institutions should be developed, and suggest that these constraints are likely to take a cosmopolitan form. (shrink)

How much should we sacrifice for the sake of others? While some argue in favour of significant sacrifices, others contend that morality cannot demand too much from individuals. Recently, the debate has taken a new turn by focusing on moral demands under non-ideal conditions in which the essential interests of many people are set back. Under such conditions, in some views, moral theories must require extreme moral demands as anything less is incompatible with equal consideration of everyone’s interests. The insistence (...) on the extremeness of moral demands, however, presupposes a simplistic account of non-ideal conditions as characterized mainly by the non-compliance of many individuals. Non-ideal conditions are also characterized by institutional non-compliance, whereby institutions often do not do what they ought to do. Institutional non-compliance is significant as it increases the size of moral demands significantly, thereby exacerbating the conflict between these demands and the self-interest of individuals subjected to these institutions. I argue that individuals have a meta-interest in not experiencing such internal conflicts as these can undermine their affirmation of self-respect. Meta-interest can be advanced by adopting the promotion of just institutions as an ultimate aim, as such institutions lessen the conflict and, accordingly, enable us to live more harmonious lives. Moreover, the promotion of just institutions allows us to affirm our sense of self-respect under non-ideal conditions too. Because the promotion of just institutions is in our self-interest, this is not an extreme but a moderate moral demand. (shrink)

How much should we sacrifice for the sake of others? While some argue in favour of significant sacrifices, others contend that morality cannot demand too much from individuals. Recently, the debate has taken a new turn by focusing on moral demands under non-ideal conditions in which the essential interests of many people are set back. Under such conditions, in some views, moral theories must require extreme moral demands as anything less is incompatible with equal consideration of everyone’s interests. The insistence (...) on the extremeness of moral demands, however, presupposes a simplistic account of non-ideal conditions as characterized mainly by the non-compliance of many individuals. Non-ideal conditions are also characterized by institutional non-compliance, whereby institutions often do not do what they ought to do. Institutional non-compliance is significant as it increases the size of moral demands significantly, thereby exacerbating the conflict between these demands and the self-interest of individuals subjected to these institutions. I argue that individuals have a meta-interest in not experiencing such internal conflicts as these can undermine their affirmation of self-respect. Meta-interest can be advanced by adopting the promotion of just institutions as an ultimate aim, as such institutions lessen the conflict and, accordingly, enable us to live more harmonious lives. Moreover, the promotion of just institutions allows us to affirm our sense of self-respect under non-ideal conditions too. Because the promotion of just institutions is in our self-interest, this is not an extreme but a moderate moral demand. (shrink)

Is voting a duty of democratic citizenship? This article advances a new argument for the existence of a duty to vote. It argues that every normative account of electoral representation requires universal turnout to function in line with its own internal normative logic. This generates a special obligation for citizens to vote in electoral representative contexts as a function of the role morality of democratic citizenship. Because voting uniquely authorizes office holding in representative democracies, and because universal turnout (...) contributes powerfully to representation being fair, to be a good citizen of such democracies requires one to vote. Whereas previous arguments for a duty to vote have invoked basic moral principles like fairness or a Samaritan duty of rescue, this account is based on citizens occupying a vital functional role within electoral representative institutions. This institutional duty solves the “specificity problem” of justifying a duty to vote better than competing accounts and also immunizes the duty to objections that there is no duty to vote when there are only bad choices and that there is a no duty to vote but rather duty to vote well. By emphasizing the tight connection between institutions and individual conduct, the role morality approach used here supplies a less abstract and more realistic framework than much previous research on the ethics of democratic citizenship and brings the debate closer to constitutive features of democratic politics. (shrink)

In order to at least begin addressing the extensive the problem of moral clarity in aiding the deprived to some degree, I first argue that the duty to aid the deprived is not merely a charitable one, dependent on the discretion, or the arbitrary will, of the giver (1). Then, before further analysing the individual duty to aid, I critically examine whether deprivation is better alleviated or remedied through the duties of corrective justice. I argue that the perspective (...) of corrective justice is important, but not sufficient when it comes to dealing with deprivation (2). I then argue that non-domination cannot serve as a first-order principle of justice. It is too minimalistic, since it would not require duties of justice where deprivation exists, but dominating relations and institutions do not. (3). Going back to the individual duty to help, I argue that the duties to aid the needy must be assessed according to the situation at hand (4). In order to avoid meaninglessness and morality’s excessive demands, one should be able to identify the responsible agents by constructing a shared and, in the last resort, institution-based duty to help (5). The institutional approach in this paper argues that we should create and reform institutions in order to realize the pre-existing requirement to alleviate global deprivation. This is a form of “global political justice” that does not start with politics, but ends with global political institutions. (shrink)