Category Global Justice
Would more people support foreign aid and charities if they grasped the scale of global inequality?
Cross-posted from the Inequalities Blog. For all the attention that economic inequality has received in recent years, it is too rarely noticed that the largest disparities in living conditions are between people in rich countries and those who are poor by global standards. Yet for those of us concerned about global inequality, the political trends […]
Is it worse to be poor in India or in Britain?
According the Economist, Natalie Bennett, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, believes it is worse to be on benefits in the UK than poor in India “because at least everyone else there is poor too”.* Is she right? A useful starting point is to distinguish between goods that depend on a person’s […]
Global Inequality is Falling. So What?
Cross-posted from Carnegie Ethics Online Concern about inequality has been at a recent high, particularly since the publication of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century—a book that has been described as “marshaling the evidence that 21st-century capitalism is on a one-way journey towards inequality.” Yet there is an ambiguity at the heart of recent research on inequality. […]
Can cosmopolitans vote for Scottish independence?
A cosmopolitan nationalist is a contradiction in terms. Yet I want to suggest that in some cases consistent cosmopolitans may be justified in supporting nationalist causes – in particular, voting ‘yes’ in independence referenda like the ones anticipated in Scotland and Catalonia in 2014. Cosmopolitanism is the moral or political theory that insists that nationality […]
The difficulties of a ‘coalition of the rational’ on immigration
One of the intriguing ideas to emerge from the Labour party conference earlier this month is shadow immigration minister Chris Bryant’s proposal of a non-partisan ‘coalition of the rational’ in favour of immigration. The idea is attractive and interesting because it raises the ideological complexity of the issue. However, it is this very complexity that […]
Should Academics Brainwash their Students? and Other Professional-Ethical Dilemmas
Related to my discussion a couple of weeks ago of the problems and responsibilities of philosophers engaging with non-academics, you might be interested to look at Simon Caney’s latest article (or, for that matter, the rest of the latest issue of Ethics and International Affairs). Caney’s paper addresses the question of what academics can contribute […]
Social Problems Are Like Maths 