One-third of all human lives end in early death from poverty-related causes. Most of these premature deaths are avoidable through global institutional reforms that would eradicate extreme poverty. Many are also avoidable through global health-system reform that would make medical knowledge freely available as a global public good. The rules should be redesigned so that the development of any new drug is rewarded in proportion to its impact on the global disease burden (not through monopoly rents). This reform would bring (...) drug prices down worldwide close to their marginal cost of production and would powerfully stimulate pharmaceutical research into currently neglected diseases concentrated among the poor. Its feasibility shows that the existing medical-patent regime (trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—TRIPS—as supplemented by bilateral agreements) is severely unjust—and its imposition a human-rights violation on account of the avoidable mortality and morbidity it foreseeably produces. (shrink)

All markets are embedded in ethical relations and moral discourses. This is often forgotten or ignored in alternative agrofood studies, where there has been a frequent assumption that ‘ethics’ can be inserted into markets (Trentmann, 2007), or are only acknowledged in products certified as ‘ethical’ and suchlike (Barnett, Cloke, Clarke, & Malpass, 2005). This paper takes a different approach, choosing to explore how a mainstream commodity, widely associated with the development of capitalist agriculture (Mintz, 1985), is unavoidably embedded in both (...) a set of moral discourses and a web of ethical relations (Goodman, Maye, & Holloway, 2010). Specifically, I offer a critical reading of the moral discourses that circulated between the Caribbean Sugar Protocol signatories and the European Union in the context of the 2006–2009 European Union Sugar Reform. The paper looks at how both Caribbean and European actors negotiated ‘fairness’ and in doing so, reconfigured their historical relationship. I discuss how a relational—or ethical—approach to fairness was evoked in certain instances, disrupting the European Union's (EU) neoliberal rhetoric. Contributing to the literature around ‘moral geographies’ (Jackson & Ward, 2008; Proctor et al., 1999; Smith, 1999) and also to agrofood studies, I conclude by affirming the significance of a relational approach to how the ‘fairness’ of the EU Sugar Reform might be comprehended and to how the ethics of neoliberal market reform can be more generally understood and critiqued. (shrink)

The paper offers a critical interrogation of the politics of hope in relation to suffering in the world. It begins with a critique of the assumptions and aspirations of ‘philosophies of hope’ that assume a Levinasian responsibility for the suffering-Other. Such approaches to thinking hope reveal an underlying coloniality of ontology, of totality/exteriority, which defines Being and Non-Being, presence and absence, in totality. Consistent with past colonial rationalities, the logics of salvation and rescue define, still, these contemporary envisionings of the (...) ‘white man’s burden’ in relation to the suffering Other. A decolonial ontology of Exteriority, of an incommensurable radical Other-Being against Totality, is instead presented. The focus here shifts from the passive suffering-Other that is the object of rescue, to the Radical Other that is the author of encounter. By returning Exteriority to theory and by opening up theory’s locations of enunciation, the implications of responsibility, in thinking hope, become open also to interrogation and vulnerable to unsatisfactory conclusions. (shrink)

This paper examines the links between acting upon a duty to assist, responsibility for these actions, and how such actions link with incremental moral duties that can amass as a consequence of such action. More specifically, this paper is concerned with practices of international aid and assistance, whereby public and privately funded donations enable the actions of parties outside of the territorial and jurisdictional boundaries of a community and state to directly influence the functioning of that community, and the incremental (...) moral duties to which such action can give rise. Using a Senian account of the basis of moral duty, it explains how agents are responsible for the outcomes of their acts of assistance, even when mediated through international institutional actors, and how such acts can give rise to accumulative duties and obligations that are not bound or constrained by territorial boundaries or pre-existing special obligations. (shrink)

In light of recent attempts to determine the political role and status of corporations I discuss the normative implications of considering multinational corporations (MNCs) as political actors. I posit that corporations do indeed have a new political role in a connected world, in particular with respect to matters of human rights, social and environmental justice. We thus find a growing need for ethical and political knowledge to inform and guide the emerging political co-responsibility of MNCs. I draw on the rich (...) literature in cosmopolitanism to seek such guidance and discuss some of the implications that a cosmopolitan perspective implies. (shrink)

As the world is getting increasingly connected and interdependent it becomes clear that the world’s most pressing public problems such as poverty or global warming call for cross-sector solutions. The paper discusses the idea of business leaders acting as agents of world benefit, taking an active co-responsibility in generating solutions to problems. It argues that we need responsible global leaders who are aware of the pressing problems in the world, care for the needs of others, aspire to make this world (...) a better place, and act in word and deed as global and responsible citizens. The argument is structured as follows: first, in highlighting some leadership challenges we discuss why it takes a responsible, global, and ultimately cosmopolitan mindset to enhance human values on a global scale. Second, we define more specifically responsible global leadership and the (potential) role of business leaders acting as agents of world benefit. Third, drawing on latest research on cosmopolitanism, we discuss the hallmarks of contemporary cosmopolitanism. Fourth, and concluding our argument, we propose key cosmopolitan business principles to help leaders build a more inclusive world. (shrink)

Then UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s attendance at a Passover Seder organised by the radical leftist group, Jewdas, in April 2018, led to a brief but vitriolic controversy involving Anglo-Jewish umbrella organisations concerning who qualifies to speak as a Jew. This article uses this controversy to engage with Judith Butler’s attempt to address this question, suggesting that in decentring Zionist claims to Jewish subjectivity she fails to take account of how different Jewish subjectivities are formed, and thus ends up (...) proposing a ‘good Jew/bad Jew’ binary that dissolves Jewishness into universal humanism. Drawing on the work of the German-Jewish mystical anarchist Gustav Landauer (1870–1919), the article proposes a different way of understanding subjectivity that retains ontological inherency as a plausible precondition for ethical solidarity. As such, the article’s argument has implications not merely for a reworked understanding of Jewish subjectivity but for the politics of subject formation more broadly. (shrink)

Peter Singer’s groundbreaking call to action in 1972, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” drew philosophical attention to the topic of famine and the associated suffering or preventable death of many throughout the world. Yet despite the volume of philosophical work Singer’s paper inspired, it would still be easy to suppose that global poverty is not a problem for philosophers to take seriously in itself but is rather a particularly stark illustration or instance of a more general problem, whether in ethics or (...) in political philosophy. The aim of this paper is to argue that the philosophical landscape of global poverty is both sui generis and sufficiently complex that the topic should be considered not as an instance of a more general philosophical problem but as a distinct area of normative inquiry. (shrink)

Glen Pettigrove addresses the proportionality principle in ethics, the principle that “our actions, attitudes, or emotions should be proportional to the degree of value present in the object or events to which they are responding” [p. 1]. He argues this is inconsistent with some familiar features of common-sense morality. In response, he brings virtuous character into the picture, a move we support but wish to modify. We show that certain helping actions should be guided by whether one has the virtue (...) profile most suited to the situation from amongst a surrounding network of people. (shrink)

World economy has been doing well in recent decades even taking into account the current financial crisis. However, there are even more people suffering from poverty and related issues than earlier. I am going to discuss the issue of helping poor people in the context of ethics. In my thesis, I will firstly state the standard of absolute poverty, which will be the main focus in the remainder of the text. Then, I will present the argument given by a contemporary (...) philosopher, Peter Singer, that urges us to give money to the poor people. I will go through his argument and his analogy between saving a drowning child and giving out our money for charity on poverty relief. Many people may think his theory controversial and difficult to accept. Afterwards, I will present main arguments against Singer. I will assess these arguments and claim that some of them fail as criticisms of Singer’s central claims. However some do successfully point out the flaws of Singer’s argument, and some actually aim at questioning the entire discussion of poverty relief. I will try to present and assess the effectiveness of the alternative arguments by other philosophers that avoid these criticisms and that try to support the aid in a different way. The main question in my thesis in whether we have any moral obligation to help the poor people around the world. And if we have such duties, to what extent we are obliged to do so. I will do the literature review on different arguments and try to give my own opinions in different parts in my thesis. (shrink)