Chris Dunk Do I owe my fellow countrymen more than I owe other human beings? If so, why?

Caney argues that any comprehensive analysis of distributive justice must answer the following four questions what sorts of entities are included within the systems; who are the rightful recipients of goods, and who is obligated to distribute them; what people should have fair shares of; and according to what criterion of justice the goods should be distributed. For the purposes of this question, the second and third criteria are perhaps the most relevant, simply because many authors on the topic agree that individuals, rather than states or families, are the entities under discussion, and that the criterion of justice might vary, but many of the arguments for systems of justice to be either global or national apply across many of the potential principles of justice. Furthermore, arguably the most interesting part of the second principle is who is obligated to distribute goods whilst many of us might agree that those in other countries have a claim to primary goods, a common response is that it is not my duty, nor that of my countrymen, to provide goods to those who live in another state. There are three main points of discussion upon which I wish to focus in this essay; the first is the common assumption made by those promoting global theories of justice that my passive allowance of the suffering of others is as bad as if I had caused it myself. The second point of contention is over who might hold a duty of care for those in poverty across the world, and whether I can really be held responsible for the plight of those in other states. Clearly, if the first point holds, then this point is going to be far easier to prove. Finally, the third point of discussion is whether a primary good, or basic right (dependent on the system of justice used) is variant or invariant across nations although we might agree that every individual is entitled to the social bases of self-respect, if these goods vary wildly in practice then we might argue that we cannot apply the same principles of justice globally, but instead must rely on the separate justice of nations, with perhaps some more basic principles governing international interaction. It makes sense to first discuss what I might owe to human beings in general, before going on to what I might owe to my countrymen in particular. There are a variety of contrasting principles of justice that argue in favour of owing a basic set of rights or primary goods to other human beings: for example, Rawls original position argument is often extended beyond the national setting in which he envisaged it to include global society; the just global society is that which maximises the position of the worst off, and inequalities can only exist if they are to the absolute (as opposed to relative) benefit of the worst off in society. In this argument primary goods are considered invariant across societies, and the duty-bearers to the worst off are simply those that are better off in the global system

Chris Dunk in this case, the population of the high-income Western nations. The central question when extending Rawls principles of justice in such a way, however, is whether they can be appropriately used in such a circumstance. Arguably, the principles of justice apply to a circumstance in which a group of people agree to work together and form a society in other words, when there is some semblance of agreement already binding the group together and providing an obligation. In the case of world society there really isnt anything equivalent if there were, then the world would be a single nation and the same sense of justice and obligation would apply. Thus, it is questionable whether Rawls principles of social justice can be extended in exactly this way. Pogge argues that Western nations should have an obligation to help those in poverty because, firstly, the practices and institutions perpetuated by the West are hugely biased in their favour, and thus exploit those in developing countries for the advantage of the already wealthy. For example, many exporters from poorer countries to richer pay four times the export tariffs than rich nations might pay to each other for exporting equivalent goods. This is obviously a case of the West doing active harm when, if anything, it should be seeking to help those who are in need. This harm then triggers a duty in the West to right the harms it has created so that those in poverty can work their way free without further encumbrance from the actions of the West. The second dimension of Pogges argument is that, even aside from the idea that we are actively causing harm in our exploitation of poorer countries, we have a duty to aid those countries because our passive acceptance of their condition is as bad (he argues) as if we had caused their poverty in the first place. Singer also presents this argument, in two (stronger and weaker) versions. In the stronger version, he argues that if we can prevent a bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought to do it. In the weaker version, Singer argues that we should prevent a bad if we can do so without sacrificing anything morally significant. Thus, although there is some debate over the meaning of morally significant, Singers second criterion seems eminently reasonable to use one of his more prominent examples, if I walk past a pond and see a drowning child, we would think it my duty to try and save the child if all I risk in the process is my new pair of shoes. If, however, there is a risk to me from trying to save the child, such as a chance that I might drown, then we might, under the second criterion, understand why I merely call for help rather than attempting to save the child myself. Thus the second criterion seems to be intuitively plausible; that is why we consider those who throw themselves in harms way to save others to have gone above and beyond the call of duty. The question then is whether Singers analogy is indeed analogous

Chris Dunk to international justice; Pogge gives the figure of $300 billion, or 1% of the GNP of the Western World, as the amount required to help the 2.5 billion that suffer from severe poverty. This does not particularly seem like a barrier of comparable moral importance, and thus I would argue that Singers analogy is a valid one. However, I would not argue that this means that passively accepting harm is the same as actively causing harm; I would argue that we have a yet greater duty to help those in other countries if we are actively responsible for their plight. To continue with the child/pond analogy if we had been responsible for pushing the child into the pond in the first place, then I would argue that we have a greater set of duties to make that injustice right. In that circumstance, I would argue that it is not supererogation to jump in and save the child, even in circumstances of danger to our life; equally, if we simply stood by the side of the pond and called for help (having pushed the child in), I would argue that we are not fulfilling our duty to correct our wrong. Thus, extending this analogy back to the world and international justice; if we construct an international system that exploits those that are already amongst the poorest and most in need in the world, then we have a greater duty to redress that wrong. By greater duty I mean that the cost to us can be far more significant. We might, for instance, argue that aid that costing more than half of our annual GNP would significantly compromise our ability to continue our Western way of life, and thus it constitutes something morally significant. Under Singers weaker second principle, this would then mean that we did not have a duty to do so; however, in circumstances where we have caused the injustice, perhaps through exploitation of the third world, I would argue that we have a far stronger duty to provide aid, even to the point of compromising our own way of life in the process. Thus, Singers stronger first principle could be applied in circumstances where we have actively caused the harm in question. There are a couple of criticisms of this style of argument firstly, that it is too demanding, and second, that it relies on our intuition when so much else in the literature scorns Western intuitions as lazy and inaccurate. The demandingness objection argues that it is too much to expect us to provide for those in other countries as well as for the worse-off in our own nations, and that the burden might be so great that some will not acknowledge any kind of burden at all, disregarding their obligations, perhaps even to their own society. This lack of adherence to obligation on the part of some will only worsen the burden on others, and thus the problem of demandingness worsens yet further. However, this demandingness objection seems to me to be pretty weak we should not reject morality because we find it hard; at worst, morality is a standard that we attempt to live up to and sometimes fall short but this does not mean that it is an invalid standard. A standard that did not stretch us somewhat would be a rather pointless standard! Thus the demandingness objection seems to accept as a valid objection at

Chris Dunk the global level what would be though ridiculous at a more individual level. If we accepted the demandingness objection, then we might argue that there are watered-down responses we could still take in response to our duties, and so we might contribute 0.33% of Western GNP for three or four years, instead of 1% GNP for a year, which would still lift billions from severe poverty. This objection is very similar to that highlighted by Pogge the futility objection the basic notion of which is that the problem is so big that we may as well not bother. Pogges response quite validly is that it only seems this way if we treat the problem as monolithic. If the problem is broken down into smaller parts then it becomes infinitely more manageable. The same logic applies to the demandingness objection. The second objection is an accusation of inconsistency many theorists advocating global justice scorn our intuitions that the problem of global poverty is too futile, or too risky, to solve, or that the problem is already being dealt with. These theorists argue that our intuitive responses in these circumstances are wrong; that we need to examine the case from a logical approach rather than attempting to justify our intuitions in a Humean style (as Miller argues) which then seems inconsistent when we must use our intuitions to measure principles of justice such as Singers. However, I think here we have confused ignorance and intuition. If those in the Western world really knew about the circumstances of poverty in the developing world if they lived next door to it, and were exposed to the suffering of those in severe poverty on a day-to-day basis, then their intuition would of course be to help. Thus the case of those in favour of global justice is not necessarily internally inconsistent they should just rail against ignorance and lack of understanding rather than carefully considered intuition. Even if the argument stands, it is in essence an argument about extremity absolute poverty, not inequality in global society. Thus, once those in poverty are moved out of danger, the drowning child analogy loses much of its force, and our behaviour towards other, poorer, states, is governed largely by a policy of non-interference and exploitation. Thus the logical conclusion of Singers argument seems to be that we should provide a minimum level for everyone in the world, as opposed to Rawls argument about minimising inequality. One might then argue that Rawls argument could hold within a nation, and Singers without we have a global obligation to provide a minimum level of existence for those around us simply in virtue of their humanity; any stronger obligations must come from the ties of nation, family, and so on. Millers argument runs along similar lines, and is as follows he argues that the detail of primary goods varies so much between nations that we cannot possibly have invariant primary goods in any meaningful sense of the term. As such, we cannot have a global

Chris Dunk system of justice to provide those primary goods. For example, we might say that everyone should have the right to compete based on merit for public office; but the conceptions of merit held from society to society might mean that this primary good varies wildly, and has hugely different levels of meaning for those in different societies. This difference between societies then implies that we cannot be the duty-holders for those in other societies, for the primary goods that we provide are not those that we would ourselves expect. This is not to say that Miller does not argue in favour of any kind of international justice; he outlines three principles of global justice to exist alongside national selfdetermination. These are respect for human rights worldwide; refraining from exploiting vulnerable individuals or communities; and an obligation to provide aid to communities so that they might achieve self-determination and social justice. However, Millers point about varying uses for primary goods and rights seems to me to be a fairly weak one just because we might all use the same right differently and value it differently does not mean that the right itself varies across societies. For example, the right to free speech is widely held as a primary good, and yet it is used in hugely different ways in different social contexts. The fact that it is used differently makes the basic right no less important or demanded. Thus it does not seem completely ridiculous to expect that we should provide the opportunity for other nations to achieve self-determination. Similarly, much of the argument about duties towards those in other nations inevitably focuses on their economic rights and economic rights, such as the right to have enough food to survive, to be free from disease, and to have a reasonable education, are fairly constant values as well, even if their application or execution might vary from society to society. If we reject Rawls original position as a global system of justice (as, indeed, does Rawls himself) we are left with a position not unlike Millers three principles of global justice, despite the fact that his arguments for nationalism seem fairly unconvincing. Singers argument seems to imply that we have a duty to aid those who are in great need, but not necessarily that we need to redress inequality beyond an absolute level that signifies poverty. As discussed, Singer tries to justify this by arguing that passive observation and active causation of harm imply the same duty on the part of the agent I think that I have shown that even though I do not believe this to be the case, we nonetheless have a duty to ensure for other human beings a basic level of rights, and that we have a duty not to exploit them for our own ends. Given Rawls position still arguably holds for the relationship between citizens within a given nation, we still have stronger bonds of kinship and duty with our countrymen although we owe all human beings a decent minimum level of existence, the closer nature of our existence and cooperation with other members of our nation means that we owe it to them to maximise the position of the worst off in our society. Thus, we owe our countrymen more

Chris Dunk because what we owe them is relative, rather than absolute as a member of our society we owe them a more equal place, whereas we owe all those not of our country the basic elements of human dignity.