Consider the following well‐attested observations: (1) Forty years of international development policies have increased rural poverty in a gender‐disproportionate manner. During the last twenty years, even as USAID policies mandated concern for women, “the number of rural women living in absolute poverty rose by about 50 per cent … as against an increase of about 30 per cent for rural men”. Against this, international justice would require that women's development be secured as a part of international development.

In this article I undertake to discover the extent to which five distinct philosophical arguments for “hardhearted” responses to hunger are rationalizations. In each case, I consider the prima facie appeal and then consider the extent to which these appeals can be answered or overcome by principles promoting policies of food equity. I pay special attention to the appeal that pits political self-determination against food equity, because I believe it is especially important to determine the extent to which respect for (...) sovereignty and political self-determination is to be seen as compatible with promoting policies of food equity. (shrink)

The phenomenon of whistleblowing seems puzzling in that whistleblowing presumably brings a wrongful practice to the attention of those with power to correct the situation. In this respect, whistleblowers act to serve the public interest in defeating harmful, illegal and unjust practices. Yet these persons suffer vilification and worse, not only from their fellow employees, but from members of the general public as well. Cases in which members of a discriminated minority report instances of job discrimination, and especially instances of (...) sexual harassment resemble other cases in which an employee reports corporate or bureaucratic misdeeds. In the early 1970s those who brought charges of sexual harassment did suffer character assassination, reprisals and difficulties in finding equivalent employment afterwards. But by the mid-1980s, consequences for those bringing discrimination charges, and especially the charge of sexual harassment have come to differ in several important respects from other cases of whistleblowing. Examining the differences, and what seem to be underlying causes of these differences, provides some insight into the factors that set limits to the practice of whistleblowing in a democratic society. (shrink)