A practice-dependent conception of justice holds that principles of justice depend, in their content, on the nature of the practice that they are intended to regulate. Institutionalism, one variety of practice-dependency, claims that it is institutional form which determines principles of justice. Specifically, principles of justice should enable the effective pursuit of the point and purpose of the institution they regulate. One consequence of this view is that it cannot be a duty of justice to set up new institutions when (...) none already exist, as there are no principles of justice in the absence of institutions – call this the “conservative institutionalist claim”. In this paper, I argue against this claim, and use the case of global public goods as an example of when there can be duties of justice to set up new institutions. (shrink)

Recently, I argued against framing geoengineering—understood here in terms of the paradigm example of stratospheric sulfate injection ('SSI')—as a global public good. My main claim was that this framing is seriously misleading because of its neglect of central ethical concerns. I also suggested that 'global public good' is best understood as an umbrella term covering a cluster of distinct, but interrelated ideas. In an effort to be charitable, I adopted an inclusive approach, considering two general attitudes (...) to the technical definition, six interpretations of the universal benefit claim, three of nonrivalness, and two of nonexcudability. I then argued that SSI as such does not fit the canonical definition, and that the more relaxed versions are unhelpful. Noticing that I agree that SSI is a global public good in one relaxed sense, David Morrow insists that this is the only acceptable interpretation, that describing SSI in this way is useful, and that it becomes misleading only when the concept is misunderstood by "non-economists", and that it is uncharitable to attribute such confusion to those presenting SSI as a global public good. I will suggest that Morrow's markedly exclusive approach is uncharitable, that his relaxed interpretation remains unhelpful, that there are good reasons to respect other uses, and most importantly that the definitional dispute is an unfortunate distraction that leaves my central point about the framing of SSI largely untouched. This discussion reinforces my suggestion that it is time to excise the term 'global public good' from the framing of SSI, and perhaps more generally. (shrink)

This paper explores a global public goods approach to the health of migrants. It suggests that this approach establishes that there are a number of health goods which must be provided to migrants not because these are theirs by right, but because these goods are primary goods which fit the threefold criteria of global public goods. There are two key advantages to this approach: first, it is non-confrontational and non-oppositional, and second, (...) it provides self-interested arguments to provide at least some health goods to migrants and thus appeals to those little moved by rights-based arguments. (shrink)

A constructivist approach to global public goods -- Accounting for tastes : the social construction of utility and preferences -- Utility, preferences, and the individual public goods decision -- Leadership and the global monetary system -- Collective security as a global public good -- The individual decision to provide collective security : Romania and the Kosovo campaign -- Human rights : consensus, norms, and public bads -- Identities, utilities, and public (...) goods decisions. (shrink)

Recent discussions of genomics and international justice have adopted the concept of ‘global public goods’ to support both the view of genomics as a benefit and the sharing of genomics knowledge across nations. Such discussion relies on a particular interpretation of the global public goods argument, facilitated by the ambiguity of the concept itself. Our aim in this article is to demonstrate this by a close examination of the concept of global public (...) goods with particular reference to its use in the context of genomic databases. We contend that the argument for construing genomics as a global public good depends on seeing it as a natural good by focusing on features intrinsic to genomics knowledge. We shall argue that social and political arrangements are relevant and that recognising this opens the door to construing the use of global public goods language as a strategic one. (shrink)

Food security brings a number of benefits to humanity from which nobody can be excluded and which can be simultaneously enjoyed by all. An economic understanding of the concept sees food security qualify as a global public good. However, there are four other ways of understanding a public good which are worthy of attention. A normative public good is a good from which nobody ought to be excluded. Alternatively, one might acknowledge the benevolent character of a (...) public good. Others have argued that public goods demand being public in the sense of being visible to all. Finally, it has also been argued that public goods are those goods which need joint action to be produced and maintained. This chapter discusses these five understandings of the public good in relation to food security and highlights the advantage of assessing policies from each of these perspectives. (shrink)

Language use is a public good. Those using a common language receive benefits that are non-excludable and non-rival. And as more people speak the same language, the greater these benefits are. Sometimes individuals make a conscious decision to learn a language other than their native language in order to receive these benefits, and thereby incur costs. This paper is an attempt to determine how we should share the costs among all beneficiaries. I argue against Van Parijs’s proposal for this, (...) and instead argue that an approach found in the work of Gauthier is preferable. A general lesson to be drawn from this paper is that the correct principle for distributing the costs of public goods will depend on whether we think the good in question is required by justice or not. Where Van Parijs went wrong, I claim, was in thinking that a cross-border common language is required by justice. (shrink)

Public goods are goods that are non-rival and non-excludable. One person enjoying the benefits of a public good will not reduce the value of the good for others. And nobody within a particular population can be excluded from enjoying those benefits. While we often think of the relevant population being co-citizens of a state - national defence is taken to be the archetypal public good - in recent years the importance of public goods (...) that benefit individuals across different countries has increasingly been recognised. We can refer to these as "global public goods". When global public goods are supplied, various costs and benefits are generated, and these costs and benefits can be shared among countries in different ways. This thesis explores how justice requires us to share them; I develop a theory of distributive justice for global public goods. I begin by developing two principles for assigning the costs and benefits of supplying public goods within a state, and then argue that these should, for the most part, also govern the distribution of costs and benefits arising from global public good production. Finally, I assess how certain private goods that the supply of public goods make possible should be shared among states. The fact that these goods rely for their production on the supply of global public goods, I argue, will affect the principles of distributive justice that should govern these. (shrink)

This book considers traditional public economy theory of public goods provision as oversimplified, because it is state centered and fiscally focused.

La Educación Superior debe responder a dinámicas globales que provocan profundas transformaciones en el conocimiento, las interacciones y la vida de las personas, las comunidades y los ecosistemas. En entornos críticos, las Universidades necesitan aprender a convertirse en agentes del futuro ante los desafíos de producir bienes públicos globales y proteger los bienes comunes globales. La educación como bien común global y la interdependencia constructiva son referentes para asumir desafíos globales que van más allá del Estado Nación y requieren (...) impulsar la internacionalización como requisito de adaptación y transformación a lo que se obligan las instituciones de educación superior. (shrink)

In early policy work, climate engineering is often described as a global public good. This paper argues that the paradigm example of geoengineering—stratospheric sulfate injection (hereafter ‘SSI’)—does not fit the canonical technical definition of a global public good, and that more relaxed versions are unhelpful. More importantly, it claims that, regardless of the technicalities, the public good framing is seriously misleading, in part because it arbitrarily marginalizes ethical concerns. Both points suggest that more clarity is (...) needed about the aims of geoengineering policy—and especially governance—and that this requires special attention to ethics. (shrink)

In the 21st century, as the peoples of the world grow more closely tied together, the question of real transnational government will finally have to be faced. The end of the Cold War has not brought the peace, freedom from atrocities, and decline of tyranny for which we hoped. It is also clearer now that problems like economic risks, tax havens, and environmental degradation arising with global markets are far outstripping the governance capacities of our 20th century system of (...) distinct nation-states, even when they try to work together through intergovernmental agreements and organized bureaucracies of specialists. This work defends a cosmopolitan approach to global justice by arguing for new ways to combine the strengths of democratic nations in order to prevent mass atrocities and to secure other global public goods. While protecting cultural pluralism, Davenport argues that a Democratic League would provide a legal order capable of uniting the strength and inspiring moral vision of democratic nations to improve international security, stop mass atrocities, assist developing nations in overcoming corruption and poverty, and, in time, potentially address other global challenges in finance, environmental sustainability, stable food supplies, immigration, and so on. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, international organizations, philosophy and global justice. (shrink)

Abstract:The discussion of the global economy and worldwide expansion of the capitalist and market economic system barely deals with the topic of public goods, although they are of paramount importance precisely in this international setting. Fortunately, the theory of public economics systematically developed the central concept of the public good with its far-reaching implications so that this knowledge can be applied also to global issues. In order to treat these often vaguely discussed issues, a (...) typology of international relations is proposed. These and other considerations prepare the way to ask the question about the implied ethos. Because a common and sustainable ethos for public goods in the global economy is of great relevance and high urgency, both religious and non-religious ethical traditions are called for making their necessary contributions to this foundation. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to suggest that most current theories of global justice fail to adequately recognise the importance of global public goods. Broadly speaking, this failing can be attributed at least in part to the complexity of the global context, the individualistic focus of most theories of justice, and the localised nature of the theoretical foundations of most theories of global justice. We argue ? using examples (particularly that of protecting antibiotic (...) efficacy) ? that any truly effective theory of global justice must recognise the importance of global public goods. Global public goods confer significant benefits to individuals yet can only be effectively promoted and preserved through collective action and the restriction of individual choice; something which most theories of justice are structurally unequipped to sufficiently promote. (shrink)

At Universitat Politècnica de València, Meridies, an internship programme that places engineering students in countries of Latin America, is one of the few opportunities the students have to explore the implications of being a professional in society in a different cultural and social context. This programme was analyzed using the capabilities approach as a frame of reference for examining the effects of the programme on eight student participants. The eight pro-public-good capabilities proposed by Melanie Walker were investigated through semi-structured (...) interviews. The internship is an environment in which students can put into practice the knowledge they have acquired in undergraduate studies and to find practical relevance in what they studied. Occasionally, this also entails a critical questioning of what they have learned, a greater awareness of the limits of the contents of their studies and of the way things were taught, and interest in less explored issues that are closely linked to social justice. However, tensions can arise between the pro-public-good oriented perspectives of this programme, and a more instrumental vision. One way to overcome these tensions is to foster consideration of reflexivity, that is, the dynamic relationship between technology and society. To do so, the programme must create space before and during the internship, and upon the return of the students, to discuss and collectively reflect upon their lived experience. Additionally, it ought to engage supervisors in this educational journey, both at the university and in the host institutions, and also involve socially committed organisations in this task. (shrink)

Stephen Gardiner argues that geoengineering does not meet the “canonical technical definition” of a global public good, and that it is misleading to frame geoengineering as a public good. A public good is something that is nonrival and nonexcludable. Contrary to Gardiner’s claims, geoengineering meets both of these criteria. Framing geoengineering as a public good is useful because it allows commentators to draw on the existing economic, philosophical, and social scientific literature on the governance of (...) public goods. (shrink)

Good (ethical and effective) global public leadership—by national politicians, intergovernmental and nongovernmental international organizational leaders, multinational corporate leaders, and technoscientists—will make a significant positive difference in our global system’s capacity to solve contemporary and futuristic global problems. High levels of social, economic, political, and ethical vision; expert communication; strategic thinking; and contextual and emotional intelligence by leaders and followers will be needed to interpret global problematic situations and contexts, determine the probable causal mechanisms at work (...) in bringing about global problems, and arrive at global, national, and local solutions. We live in dangerous times. For our globalizing—disseminating and converging—technologies present problems and system-destroying possibilities that challenge the common goods of all humanity, other species, and the biosphere. In these uncertain and complex times, the need for effective and ethical democratic leaders, advised by ethical and creative technoscientific leaders, is greater than ever. The contextual intelligence and other excellent (virtuous) qualities of these leaders, and the lack of bad leadership, will help our globalizing human societies avoid the greatest systemic dangers we face. (shrink)

The good -- Common goods and the obligatory -- Is there a supreme good, a Summum bonum? -- Common goods and public goods -- Shared meaning as a common good -- Shared meaning as a global common good -- The common good in current international relations -- Collective action for global objectives -- The law of peoples -- Global justice as a global common good -- Global human rights as common (...) class='Hi'>goods. (shrink)

In this paper we examine a nation’s obligations to report infectious diseases under the World Health Organization’s new International Health Regulations. We argue that acceptance of the Regulations signals a concrete turn to cosmopolitan citizenship in the area of health. But we also show that the new global health regime and its economic consequences raise ethical tensions for both the conceptualization and practice of cosmopolitanism. Specifically: 1) using global public heath as a lens makes visible how current (...) conceptions of cosmopolitan theory are not truly in conversation with those who are the subject of their concern; and, 2) focusing on global public health illustrates the limits of present cosmopolitan citizenship. In matters of virulent pathogens, nations are required to be good global citizens by protecting citizens of other states in the absence of a framework by which other states bear some of the costs that such global citizenship demands. (shrink)

In this paper we examine a nation’s obligations to report infectious diseases under the World Health Organization’s new International Health Regulations. We argue that acceptance of the Regulations signals a concrete turn to cosmopolitan citizenship in the area of health. But we also show that the new global health regime and its economic consequences raise ethical tensions for both the conceptualization and practice of cosmopolitanism. Specifically: 1) using global public heath as a lens makes visible how current (...) conceptions of cosmopolitan theory are not truly in conversation with those who are the subject of their concern; and, 2) focusing on global public health illustrates the limits of present cosmopolitan citizenship. In matters of virulent pathogens, nations are required to be good global citizens by protecting citizens of other states in the absence of a framework by which other states bear some of the costs that such global citizenship demands. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"To make a difference...":Narrative Desire in Global MedicineByron J. Good and Mary-Jo DelVecchio GoodIf, as Arthur Frank (2002) writes, "moral life, for better and worse, takes place in storytelling," this collection of narratives written by physicians working in field settings in global medicine gives us a glimpse of some aspects of moral experience, practice, and dilemmas in settings of poverty and low health care resources. These essays (...) are written from the midst of practice, in diverse settings in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the United States. The majority of the writers are practitioners of contemporary 'global medicine'—physicians from North America or Europe who spend part of their lives flying into settings of poverty or special need to practice medicine and work with on-going collaborative clinical and public health systems—while a smaller number are working in the societies in which they were born. Although a few work for classic humanitarian organizations or have developed their own local NGO's, the great majority are engaged in the 'hybrid life' described by Robert Riviello and noted by Renée Fox, moving between academic medical centers and distant health care systems that are supported by local governments, major international organizations and funding agencies, and international NGO's like Partners in Health. These diverse forms of practice have become a common model for contemporary clinicians engaged in what has emerged as a new discipline of global health or global medicine, and these narratives give us a glimpse of some of the enduring, as well as newly emerging, forms of moral practice and ethical dilemmas characteristic of today's global medicine.Many of these stories are filled with the tension and pathos that makes clinical narratives powerful to read. Physicians are forced to make unfathomable decisions about whether to resuscitate and keep a baby alive, using all means available, or to let the infant die, whether to carry out a procedure that will save an infant in birth but would put the mother at risk, about how to deal with a cancer found in a very advanced state. However, virtually all of the stories transcend these classical stories of the decisions physicians are forced to make by being placed in settings of great scarcity of resources, which stand in particular contrast to the academic medical settings in North America or Europe where many of these global medicine specialists have trained and many continue to practice. The unspeakable inequality of resources emerges throughout these narratives as a kind of master theme, as the underlying moral, as opposed to plot, which gives meaning and sense to the stories. For those who practice medicine in such settings, global inequalities and scarcity of medical resources are deeply felt. They produce the rage that Jeffrey Deal describes. ("I learned to despise American churches during that time, a time when my world encompassed a dying newborn in Sudan, as well as the air conditioned padded seats [End Page 121] of our affluent suburban church.") They produce the distinctive experiences of helplessness and pain felt by clinicians who cannot separate how they would be able to treat such a patient at home from how they have to practice in these settings. For those clinicians working in their own societies, scarcity of resources often produces deep anger at the corrupt governments that fail to support basic human services for the great majority of their population. ("We were temporary actors performing in the cynical play of scarcity on permanent display in Port-au-Prince," writes Haitian physician Paul Pierre about his experience prior to joining Partners in Health.)But for those who regularly travel back and forth across the divide between rich and poor, whether across national boundaries or within their own society, the challenge to live a moral life is unendingly complicated. While becoming a part of a struggle for global justice with colleagues and advocates from both sides of the divide, few of the narrators can avoid personal feelings of ambivalence and guilt at being able to easily move from one side of that divide to the other back home. Many fantasize about giving up their lives in the north to devote themselves... (shrink)

Understanding defensive internationalism: black, white, or shades of gray -- Clubs, identities, and institutions: a tale of overlapping interests -- Domestic support for contributions: how stable and strong? -- International development assistance -- International debt management and relief -- United Nations peacekeeping operations -- Pursuing international environmental quality -- A global prognosis of muted optimism?

COVID-19 has revealed that science needs to learn how to better deal with the irreducible uncertainty that comes with global systemic risks as well as with the social responsibility of science towards the public good. Further developing the epistemological principles of new theories and experimental practices, alternative investigative pathways and communication, and diverse voices can be an important contribution of history and philosophy of science and of science studies to ongoing transformations of the scientific enterprise.

The COVID-19 pandemic is critically analyzed as a social magnifying glass that exacerbates pre-existing unjust situations and contexts—locally, nationally, and internationally. Hence, to reflect ethically on the multiple challenges, which people face during this crisis, requires to address the social and political determinants of health. The essay articulates a systemic approach that examines, first, unjust structural dimensions (i.e., poverty, gender, and racism); and second, local and global practices in healthcare, with privileged attention given to structural dynamics, professionals, decisions, and (...) institutional leadership. As a result, the ethics of global public health stresses how health is a shared, interconnected, and inclusive good that should be carefully protected and urgently promoted. (shrink)

This paper reflects on Lawrence Gostin’s Global Health Law. In so doing seeks to contribute to the debate about how global health justice is best conceived and achieved. Gostin’s vision of global health is one which is communal and in which health is directly connected to other justice concerns. Hence the need for health-in-all policies, and the importance of focusing on basic and communal health goods rather than high-tech and individual ones. This paper asks whether this (...) broadly communal vision of global health justice is best served by making the right to health central to the project. It explores a number of reasons why rights-talk might be problematic in the context of health justice; namely, structurally, rights are individual and state-centric and politically, they are oppositional and better suited to single-issue campaigns. The paper argues that stripping rights of their individualist assumptions is difficult, and perhaps impossible, and hence alternative approaches, such as those Gostin endorses based on global public goods and health security, might deliver much, perhaps most, global health goods, while avoiding the problems of rights-talk. (shrink)

This article offers an integrated account of two strands of global health justice: health-related human rights and health-related common goods. After sketching a general understanding of the nature of human rights, it proceeds to explain both how individual human rights are to be individuated and the content of their associated obligations specified. With respect to both issues, the human right to health is taken as the primary illustration. It is argued that the individuation of the right to health (...) is fixed by reference to the subject matter of its corresponding obligations, and not by the interests it serves, and the specification of the content of that right must be properly responsive to thresholds of possibility and burden. The article concludes by insisting that human rights cannot constitute the whole of global health justice and that, in addition, other considerations—including the promotion of health-related global public goods—should also shape such policy. Moreover, the relationship between human rights and common goods should not be conceived as mutually exclusive. On the contrary, there sometimes exists an individual right to some aspect of a common good, including a right to benefit from health-related common goods such as programmes for securing herd immunity from diphtheria. (shrink)

Applying the Roman Catholic Church's set of moral principles on social concerns called Catholic social teaching (CST) on charity, distributive justice, private property and the common good, and utilising some secondary data and scientific literature, this article argues that establishing distributive justice for the global distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines must be a priority than donating millions of doses in the name of charity to address vaccine scarcity. Catholic social teaching teaches that the right to private property is a (...) basic right but has moral limits and is subordinated to the moral principles on the universal destination of earth's goods and the common good. CONTRIBUTION: The current COVID-19 vaccines are developed by people and organisations outside the pharmaceutical companies and largely funded using taxpayers' money. Thus, by virtue of justice, these vaccines must belong to all nations as global public health goods. Patents are to be suspended to allow poor countries to reproduce the popular vaccines and address the current vaccine shortage. (shrink)

Actions to prepare for and prevent pandemics are a common topic for bioethical analysis. However, little attention has been paid to global catastrophic biological risks more broadly, including pandemics with artificial origins, the creation of agents for biological warfare, and harmful outcomes of human genome editing. What’s more, international policy discussions often focus on economic arguments for state action, ignoring a key potential set of reasons for states to mitigate global catastrophic biological risks: moral reasons. In this paper, (...) I frame the mitigation of such risks as a global public good, and I explore three possible categories of moral reasons that might motivate states to provide this global public good: nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and interstate obligations. Whilst there are strong objections to moral nationalism as a reason for states to act, moral cosmopolitanism may provide a broad reason which is further supplemented for individual states through the elaboration of interstate moral obligations. The obligations I consider are moral leadership, fairness, and reciprocity. Moral reasons for individual states action may more effectively or more appropriately motivate states to mitigate global catastrophic biological risks. (shrink)

What kind of science – or, more generally, what kind of academic inquiry – can best contribute to the public good? Two answers are considered: knowledge-inquiry and wisdom-inquiry. The former is what we have at present. It is, however, damagingly irrational. The latter is more rigorous and, potentially, of greater value in human and intellectual terms. It arises as a result of putting the Enlightenment Programme properly into practice. We urgently need to bring about a revolution in academia, so (...) that wisdom-inquiry is put into practice. (shrink)

To understand the prospects for global order and progress in the coming years, we explore the joint implications of three premises: (1) states advantaged by the current international order have stakes in its regularity and predictability, and thus in moving to counter or prevent threats to those stakes; (2) along impure public and club goods lines, they are more likely to make efforts to do so when some private or club benefits result; and (3) public opinion (...) provides a bounded policy acceptance envelope offering incentives and disincentives to national political elites to act as envisioned by the first two premises. We present a mosaic of public opinion in major OECD countries (the US, Japan, and major EU members) on three policy areas that contain international public goods elements. Actual contribution tendencies in those areas found in our previous work largely conform to the public opinion patterns reported here. Within the limits of available data, domestic political incentives as represented by public opinion warrant neither extreme optimism nor pessimism about the prospects for continuing contributions by OECD states to sustaining orderly functioning of the current world system. (shrink)

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)

Economist-philosopher Amartya Sen's writings on social and political issues have attracted wide audiences. Section 2 introduces his contributions on: how people reason as agents within society; social determinants of people's (lack of) access to goods and of the effective freedoms and agency they enjoy or lack; and associated advocacy of self-specification of identity and high expectations for ‘voice’ and reasoning democracy. Section 3 considers his relation to social theory, his tools for theorizing action in society, and his limited degree (...) of attention to work by sociologists and to capitalism and power structures. Section 4 characterizes a style marked by conceptual refinement, emphases on complexity and individuality, including personal individuality, and reformist optimism. Section 5 shows the features from Sections 3 and 4 at work in his conception of personhood that advocates freedom to make a reasoned composition of personal identity. Similarly, Section 6 addresses his conception of public reasoning and neglect of the sociology of democracy. It contrasts the ideal of a reasoning polity with features in many countries. Sen's programmes for critical autonomy in personhood and for reasoned politics play, nevertheless, a normic role, while his analytical formats help investigation of obstacles to more widespread agency, voice, and democratic participation. (shrink)

While there is a growing body of work on moral issues and global governance in the fields of global justice and international relations, little work has connected principles of global health justice with those of global health governance for a theory of global health. Such a theory would enable analysis and evaluation of the current global health system and would ethically and empirically ground proposals for reforming it to more closely align with moral values. (...) Global health governance has been framed as an issue of national security, human security, human rights, and global public goods. The global health governance literature is essentially untethered to a theorized framework to illuminate or evaluate governance. This article ties global health justice and ethics to principles for governing the global health realm, developing a theoretical framework for global and domestic institutions and actors. (shrink)

This article compares two transnational public–private partnerships against hunger and malnutrition, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the International Alliance Against Hunger with regard to their degree of business involvement and their input and output legimacy. We examine the participation of stakeholders, the accountability and transparency of the decision-making process, and the perceived provision of a public good. We identify a link between business involvement and output legitimacy, and we discuss the implications for public and (...) private food governance. (shrink)

Is it just to charge international students fees that are generally much higher than those paid by home and European Union students at UK universities? Exploring the ethical tension between universities? avowed commitment to social justice on the one hand and selling education to foreign students at a premium on the other, we argue that increased global association and the reduced salience of the sovereign state make the education of international students an issue of global justice. If we (...) view education as a global public good, the ethics of higher education provision call for reconsideration of both the current fee regime and of universities? role in a competitive global economy. (shrink)

An important issue within the field of global ethics is the extent or scope of moral obligation or duties. Cosmopolitanism argues that we have duties to all human beings by virtue of some common property. Communitarian ethics argue that one’s scope of obligation is circumscribed by one’s community or some other defining property. Public virtues, understood to be either a property that communities possess to function well or a moral excellence constitutive of that community, offer an interesting challenge (...) to this binary by positing moral goods or excellences that are constitutive of a community yet global in application. Virtues such as tolerance, charity, moderation, or benevolence might be examples of such goods or excellences endorsed by a community but applied to individuals who are not members of the community, or, as in the case of environmental ethics, even to entities that are not moral agents. Unlike cosmopolitan ethics, the scope of the obligation does not depend on identifying universal properties, such as rationality, human dignity, or utility, but could be defined entirely by and within a community. (shrink)

EurepGAP is a pioneering field level food safety protocol called ‘good agricultural practices’ currently exercising influence over the global food quality assurance system. Developed by a consortium of major European retailers, this private standard enforces codes of conduct that address issues of health and safety for producers and consumers, as well as working conditions and environmental management on the farmland. Despite various merits and benefits that the standard is premised to offer, the institutional design gives a financial edge to (...) powerful large farms and exporters while diminishing opportunities for smaller growers and exporters to remain in the profitable agricultural export sector of the Global South. This paper explores the institutional origin and evolution of EurepGAP, discusses entry barriers and risks that EurepGAP imposes on the global value chain stakeholders, as well as the ethical implications from broader theoretical perspectives. Subsequently, it examines the evolving nature of a new trend in the fresh fruit and vegetable sector, i.e., the rise of public GAP standards. Promoted by some governments in the Global South, these GAP standards emphasize support for horizontal partnerships among value chain stakeholders, farmer participation, and less capital-intensive agricultural innovations. The paper argues that, within certain limitations, these GAP standards have the potential to be the major alternative GAP approach by encouraging a much broader inclusion of small-scale producers towards the attainment of various social, economic, and environmental benefits. (shrink)

In The Law of Peoples, John Rawls does not discuss justice and the global economy at great length or in great detail. What he does say has not been well-received. The prevailing view seems to be that what Rawls says in The Law of Peoples regarding global economic justice is both inconsistent with and a betrayal of his own liberal egalitarian commitments, an unexpected and unacceptable defense of the status quo. This view is, I think, mistaken. Rawls’s position (...) on global or international economic justice is richer, more nuanced, and generally more compelling than his critics have been willing to acknowledge. My aim in this essay is to sympathetically set out, and then defend against two common families of objection to, Rawls’s position on global or international economic justice. Objections of the first sort reject Rawls’s position as inadequately attentive to the material and economic interests of individual persons worldwide. Objections of the second sort reject it as inadequately attentive to the material and economic interests of well-ordered peoples. Throughout the paper I develop several arguments implicit in The Law of Peoples but not well-developed there as well as offer some additional arguments of my own consistent with the spirit of The Law of Peoples and Rawls’s work more generally. I conclude with some brief remarks expressing two worries I have about Rawls’s position – one concerning global public goods, the other concerning the formation of a morally adequate and effective political will within the international context under contemporary conditions. (shrink)

In the 1970s and the 1980s, multicultural education spread in many countries. However, in the mid-1980s the golden age of multiculturalism came to an end. Neo-conservative political forces attacked multicultural policies and progressively a neo-liberal discourse pervaded economic and social policies, also affecting national education systems. In contrast, multicultural approaches have emerged with tremendous vigour in the field of business management. Juxtaposing cognitive, emotional and socio-communicative multiculturalism found in organisational studies onto multiculturalism in the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum indicates whether (...) multiculturalism in international schools aims to respond to the needs of global capitalism. The findings show that emotional, cognitive and socio-communicative multiculturalism are seen as essential traits for good performance in transnational corporations, and they are strongly encouraged in the IB curriculum. The relevance of multicultural skills in global management alongside the decay of multiculturalism in public education systems entails a growing educational disparity between lower class and higher class children. A new educational structure in which two differentiated systems – a national system and an international system – emerges and redefines the terms of inequality of opportunities. (shrink)