Justice & Global Issues Final

Question 1

What are the main problems associated with what Pogge calls “severe poverty”? (x8)

Answer 1

Starvation

Malnutrition

Illness

Poor health

Low life expectancy

Dependency

Social exclusion

Slavery

Question 2

What does Pogge estimate as the anual death toll from poverty-related causes?

Answer 2

18 million

Question 3

What kind of sacrifice for the wealthy would be required, according to Pogge, to eliminate this poverty?

Answer 3

Wealthy people would have to let poverty stricken people consume 1% more global production.

Question 4

What is Singer’s argument that we should take action to help the poor, and how is it different from O’Neill’s?

Answer 4

Singer (utilitarian): We have a moral responsibility to help the world’s poor if we are in a position to do so. It is not a charity nor generous but a moral duty.

O’Niell (Kantian): What matters most in the theory and practice of addressing global poverty are obligations. There are obligations to assist the poor. Obligations are more important than rights.

Question 5

How is Pogge’s argument different from Singer’s and O’Niell’s?

Answer 5

The duties to the poor derive from the fact that the rich cause and therefore are responsible for poverty. These are negative duties not to harm and thus duties it is harder to deny.

Question 6

What is the free market theory of capitalism?

Answer 6

Supply meets demand (pencil example)

Efficiency incentivized (capitalists compete)

Egoists become altruists

Freedom and welfare for all

Question 7

According to which free markets are guaranteed to turn egoists into altruists, and promote freedom and welfare for alll?

Answer 7

Egoists turn into altruists because they want to find out what people need, produce it, and make money from it

Question 8

What is the Marxist view of the reality of capitalism, and why is it going to increase rather than decrease poverty

Answer 8

More extreme poverty than before capitalism, yet amidst plenty

Market serves the needs of those with money, elite run governemnt as well as economy, WTO, etc.

Regular crisis (business cycle, crashes)

Excessive power of labor forces were disciplined by offshoring –> wage repression –> nobody buys anything –> what happened to demand? –> credit cards –> debt –> geographical movement of financial problems.

$ –> buy labor, power, & means of production –> put them to work –> create commodity –> sell for original $ + profit –> take part of profit & put it towards expansion of original business –> excessive (greedy) power of financers –> “screwed industry” –> continuation –> capitalism sucks –> change?

Question 9

What is the liberal fix, and why do Marxists reject it?

Answer 9

Monetary and fiscal policies to deal with business cycle, crises

Regulation on banking and monopoly

Safety net programs

Now, really, freedom and welfare for all

Marxists rejection:

Schewikart - capitalism needs a reserve army of the unemployed, desperate potential workers, and guarantees it: if wages rise, profits go down, layoffs

Harvey - Capitalism has systemic risks, battles between labor and capital, booms and busts (not human frailty, institutional failures, false theories, cultrual origins, failures of policy).

Question 10

What is the socialist theory?

Answer 10

After industrialization, no need to work long days, share the wealth, enjoy leisure, if only $ spread around

From each according to ability, to each according to need

Equality, leisure, and welfare for all

Question 11

Reality of socialism

Answer 11

Inefficient planning

Unfree, controlled societies

Poverty of body and spirit

Elite of socialist rulers

Question 12

Socialism: the fix

Answer 12

Economic democracy: workers vote in the board of directors

No unfair global competition

Aid to deal with global poverty

Question 13

What are some problems with humanitarian and development aid? (x7)

Answer 13

Ignores long-term issues

Damages social and economic structures

Applies to top-down standards

Uses inapproprate metrics

Encourages corruption and abuses of power

Comes with harmful conditions

Creates a culture of dependency

Question 14

Strategies for dealing with poverty (x7)

Answer 14

Traditional humanitarian aid

Development aid

Influence policy in governments

Microfinance

Fairtrade

Capability approach

Offshoring and globalization

Question 15

Development aid (strategy for dealing with poverty)

Answer 15

Long-term projects to buid capacity and infrastructure

Question 16

Microfinance (strategy for dealing with poverty)

Answer 16

Small loans (~$100) to a person in a poor area with low interest rates –> he/she opens a small business –> encourages entreprenuership

Question 17

Fairtrade (strategy for dealing with poverty)

Answer 17

Encourages the creation of long-term resources

Products produced in a way that benefits the producers (workers)

Question 18

Capability approach (strategy for dealing with poverty)

Answer 18

Provide aid according to peoples capabiltiy

Question 19

Stewardship Model (environmental ethics)

Answer 19

Humans are the stewards or trustees of nature. The ways in which humans can act towards nature is limited. They cannot do whatever they wish and do not have domination over nature. They have a duty to prevent animal suffer and harm to nature. Must protect animals, species, habitats, biological and ecological systems, biodiversity and prevent extinction.

Question 20

Deep ecology (environmental ethics)

Answer 20

Intrinsic value of ecosystems. Ecosystems and nature are instrumentally valuable to humans. Humans have no right to reduce the richness and diversity of the natural world except to support its vital needs. Humans are not the center of concern.

Question 21

Instrumentalism (environmental ethics)

Answer 21

Protect the aspects of the environment that are useful to humans.

Question 22

What is Steffan’s solution to the problem of climate change?

Answer 22

Bright green cities via leapfrogging, new technology (lifestraws, green roofs, LEDs, water solutions, landmine flowers).

Question 23

What are the six conditions that must be met for it to be justified to go to war according to traditional just war theory?

Answer 23

Legitimate authority

Just cause (self-defense)

Right intention

Probability of success

Last resort

Proportionality (weighing the odds)

Question 24

Which US wars in the last 100 years clearly meet the conditions, and which arguably do not?

Answer 24

WWI

WWII

Vietnam War

1990 Gulf-War

2001 Afghanistan

2003 Iraq War

Question 25

What are the three conditions that must be met for the conduct of war to be just, according to traditional just war theory?

Answer 25

Discrimination: to be just combatants must distinguish between enemy combatants and non-combatants

Proportionality: to be just the harms of any action must be proportional to the gains

Military Necessity: to be just, an action must be militarily necessary to achieve the end with minimum harm

Question 26

What is the doctrine of double effect and how is it important to the conditions of traditional just war theory?

Answer 26

Employed in Just War Theory to argue that an action that is genuinely, militarily necessary is permitted even if there are significant civilian casualties; however, it must meet the give conditions of the doctrine:

The five conditions of the Double Effect Doctrine:

1. ) The action must be either morally good or indifferent in itself.
2. ) The bad effect must not be the means by which one achieves the good effect.
3. ) The intention must be to achieve the good effect. The bad effect must be unintended side effect, although it may be forseen.
4. ) The good effect must make up for or outweight the bad effect.
5. ) The action must be the ony way of achieving the justified end.

Question 27

What is the difference between pre-emptive and preventative war, and which is justified according to just war theory?

Answer 27

Preventative war aims to forstall a military threat that is distant rather than imminent.

Pre-emptive war is an attack initiated on the basis of incontrovertible evidence that an enemy attack is imminent.

Pre-emptive war is justified.

Question 28

What is American exceptionalism?

Answer 28

American exceptionalism is used to describe the belief that the US occupies a special position in history and on the global stage by virtue of certain characteristics held to be unique to the US.Luban suggests that those who allow this double standard must prove that this new world order is morally acceptable but that they fail at doing so.

Question 29

What are some of the global aspects of the issues of abortion?

Answer 29

Pro life vs. pro choice (killing a fetus is murder vs. fetuses don’t have human rights until they are at a certain gestational age and/or born).

Women’s rights, reproductive rights (contraception and birth control)

Quality of life for both mother and child

Other issues: designer babies (any child selected for certain traits and parts), genetic therapy, stem-cell therapy.

Question 30

What are some of the global aspects of the issues of euthanasia?

Answer 30

Sanctity of life (euthanasia should never be permitted vs. right of the individual to choose when to end their own life and that it is the quality of life that is important rather than simply prolonging it).

Quality of life

Choices individual should be permitted to make about their own lives

Threats of legalizing euthanasia:

• Pressure on those who don’t really wish to end their lives
• Mentally diseased, handicapped, and/or unwanted…

Question 31

What are the two kinds of medical tourism that are widespread, and what are the three challenges to relying on an informed consent framework to rebut ethical challenges to those varieties of medical tourism?

Answer 31

Two types of medical tourism: reproductive tourism and global organ trade.

Three challenges of relying on informed consent:

1. Desparate choices = involuntary consent in actuality
2. Even voluntary choice might not make it okay (might be unsafe)
3. Inauthentic choice = might:

• not have understood the deal,
• have been pressured
• have been illiterate and signed a contract they couldn’t read

Question 32

Why do Walzer and Luban reject preventative war?

Answer 32

The question is whether a general doctrine of preventive war to forestall relatively distant threats is morally defensible. My answer is no: following Walzer, I fear that giving a green light to preventive war would make wars too frequent and too routine. The permission to launch preventive war should also be restricted to situations in which the target poses physical threats to a state’s people and homeland, not simply threats to economic interests in an elevated standard of living. Otherwise, I suggest, the doctrine of preventive war justifies too many wars.

Question 33

What is the sheriff theory?

Answer 33

The sheriff theory is the idea that the United States is a self-appointed international sheriff that other countries, especially Europe, seem to welcome. Because the US is both self-appointed sheriff, the arrangement is considered only semi-consensual. The United States’ job as international sheriff is to try “to enforce some peace and justice in what Americans see as a lawless world where outlaws need to be deterred or destroyed, often through the muzzle of a gun.” Someone has to play the sheriff in a Hobbesian world while Europe is the saloonkeeper. Saloonkeepers don’t mind the US being a self-appointed sheriff because they view the US as protecting them in self-defense against outlaws. That is the world’s justification for this set up. Luban rejects the sheriff theory because Europe has the military power to defend themselves and because the US has proven itself to not be a good guard against genocide.

Question 34

Consequences framework applied to climate change

Answer 34

Hardin (lifeboat theory, tradgedy of the commons)

• If the environmental crisis is to be resolved, then we have duties explicitly to protect the planet so that human beings survive.
• The argument that because we all share the planet, we should share resources is misguided, sucidal, and unfair to the rights of future generations (tradgedy of the commons)
• Do not reduce the lifeboat safety factor by letting people climb aboard.
• Stop the population from rising because more resources will be used
• THREAT TO HUMAN SURVIVAL!

Question 35

Rights framework applied to climate change

Answer 35

Simon Caney: Climate change needs addressing with the utmost haste. All individuals possess human rights irrespective of their social or cultural circumstances, and these rights take priority over other values. Rights are “moral thresholds”; they deliniate an acceptable standard beneath which no one should be allowed to fall. Climate change threatens three rights: rights to life, health, and subsistence. Because climate change is brought about by human action, he is able to base his argument on a negative-rights claim that there is a right not to be harmed by the actions of others.

Question 36

What are the various strategies described by Widdows for dealing with climate change, regarding who takes on the main burden?

Answer 36

• Equality of burdens
• Equality of quotas
• Polluter pays
• Beneficiary pays
• Ability to pay

Question 37

What is Lombort’s “triage” approach to global problems, and what would it imply about climate change?

Answer 37

When looking at a list of solutions to a problem, need to prioritize solutions to problems based on practicality.

Question 38

What are the main problems highlighted by feminists about global gender justice?

Answer 38

• Gender discrimination
• Controlling women’s bodies
  
  • Controlling reproduction
  • Rape as a crime against humanity
• Male frameworks and theories

Question 39

What is care ethics, and how does it shed a different light on problems of global gender justice?

Answer 39

Characteristics:

• Emphasizes responsibility and relationships, not rights and rules
• Is contextual and narratice, not formal and abstract
• Focuses on personal processes and activity, not one-off acts or choices.