Abstract
On cosmopolitan theories everyone deserves equal respect and consideration as ultimate units of moral concern independent of citizenship or other affiliation.1 On non-cosmopolitan theories citizenship status or other affiliations help determine what we owe to others.2 Surprisingly, non-cosmopolitans can grant that everyone deserves equal respect and consideration as ultimate units of moral concern and cosmopolitans can hold that citizenship status or other affiliations may help determine what we owe to others.3 Cosmopolitans and non-cosmopolitans usually disagree about whether or not it is acceptable to give priority to the claims of compatriots over, more needy, outsiders. Often the crucial claim in non-cosmopolitan arguments is that non-humanitarian obligations of legitimacy or justice only pertain within states.4 This chapter takes issue with this claim.
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Notes
Gillian Brock (2009). Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Richard Miller (1998). ‘Cosmopolitan Respect and Patriotic Concern’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 27(3): 202–224.
Michael Blake (2001). ‘Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 30(3): 257–296.
Thomas Nagel (2005). ‘The Problem of Global Justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33(2): 113–147.
Gillian Brock (2009). Global Justice: A Cosmopolitan Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Michael Blake (2001). ‘Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 30(3): 257–296.
Cosmopolitans might also challenge some of the non-cosmopolitans’ assumptions about what institutional arrangements are feasible or about the relative weight of humanitarian obligations to the global poor vs. non-humanitarian obligations to outsiders. For discussion see: Nicole Hassoun (2010). ‘Making the Case for Foreign Aid’, Public Affairs Quarterly 24(1): 1–20.
Richard Miller (1998). ‘Cosmopolitan Respect and Patriotic Concern’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 27(3): 202–224.
Michael Blake (2001). ‘Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 30(3): 257–296.
Thomas Nagel (2005). ‘The Problem of Global Justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33(2): 113–147.
For accounts of basic needs see: Gillian Brock (1998). Necessary Goods: Our Responsibilities to Meet Others’ Needs. New York: Roman and Iittlefield Publishers Inc.
Allen Buchanan (1990). ‘Justice as Reciprocity vs. Subject-Centered Justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 19(3): 227–252.
Simon Caney (2002). ‘Survey Article: Cosmopolitanism and the Law of Peoples’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 10(1): 95–133.
Thomas Pogge (2005). ‘Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation’ in Thomas Pogge (ed.), Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Such a system is similar to Rawls’ basic structure except that my use of institution may be closer to Rawls’ use of association than his use of institution. As this chapter uses the term, an institutional system does not require cooperation. It merely requires social interaction. See: John Rawls (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Thomas Pogge (1989). Realizing Rawls. New York: Cornell University Press.
Allen Buchanan (2004). Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-determination: Moral Foundations for International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Samuel Freeman (2007). Justice and the Social Contract: Essays on Rawlsian Social and Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Michael Green (2002). ‘Institutional Responsibility for Global Problems’, Philosophical Topics 30(2): 79–96.
Joost Pauwelyn (2004). ‘Bridging Fragmentation and Unity: International Law as a Universe of Inter-connected Islands’, Michigan Journal of International Law 25: 903–916.
World Trade Organization (2007). ‘Regionalism: Friends or Rivals?’ Understanding the WTO: Cross-Cutting and New Issues. Geneva: World Trade Organization.
The underlying worry here may be expressed in Samuel Freeman’s argument against Thomas Pogge’s use of a similar term in his work. See: Samuel Freeman (2007). Justice and the Social Contract: Essays on Rawlsian Social and Political Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Larry May and Stacey Hoffman (1991). Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
The global institutional system is norm-guided and is unified by shared norms in the sense that individuals and groups within institutional systems take its rules and institutions to provide reasons for their behaviour. These individuals and groups see the rules of the system as providing norms that apply to them. They do not see these rules as mere regularities; they must take them as having reason-giving force. The Chief Justice of the Australian High Court takes the rulings of other Australian courts to have such force (although Australia does not rely on a precedent system). Similarly, international courts and appellate bodies take into consideration the rulings of other international courts and the body of international law. Although international courts and commissions usually do not invoke precedent, their justices take the decisions of other international courts and commissions to have normative force. The Human Rights Committee in charge of monitoring the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights will not even entertain individual complaints if another human rights court is examining them. Similarly, the WTO takes into account the provisions of other international treaties. The WTO’s Article 24, for instance, allows members of regional trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to give each other special treatment. Even states specify that their laws cannot conflict with international laws. In the US, for instance, potential conflicts are avoided by making international law sovereign over state law. For more on norm-guidedness see: H.L.A. Hart (1994). The Concept of Law. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
For further discussion of coercion and its moral significance see: Gerald Gaus (2003). ‘Liberal Neutrality: A Compelling and Radical Principle’ in Steven Wall and George Klosko (eds), Perfectionism and Neutrality: Essays in Liberal Theory. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Mathias Risse (2006). ‘What to Say about the State.’ KSG Working Paper No. RWP06-008. Cambridge: Harvard University.
Gerald Gaus (2003). ‘Liberal Neutrality: A Compelling and Radical Principle’ in Steven Wall and George Klosko (eds), Perfectionism and Neutrality: Essays in Liberal Theory. New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Adam Roberts (2001). ‘United Nations’, The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World. Second ed. Edited by Joel Krieger. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Adam Roberts (2001). ‘United Nations’ in Joel Krieger (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World. Second ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nagel is actually concerned about equality and justice rather than basic capacities and legitimacy. He believes that there is a duty of humanitarian assistance on the part of states and argues that there is no sufficiently developed global institutional system that can have distributive egalitarian obligations. That said, his argument might be adapted so that it can apply here. Thomas Nagel (2005). ‘The Problem of Global Justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33(2): 113–147.
Legitimacy, as this chapter will use the term, comes in degrees. Some people believe legitimacy is an all or none affair. This is not a substantive disagreement. Those who hold a binary theory of legitimacy can specify that an institutional system is legitimate in the binary sense if it surpasses a threshold of legitimacy in the degree sense. Understanding legitimacy as a degree term, allows one to specify different thresholds on legitimacy for different purposes. Rebellion against very illegitimate systems may be justified, while fairly legitimate systems may merely require reform. For the purpose of what follows, one need only suppose that imperfectly legitimate systems must be reformed. See: Allen Buchanan (2004). Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-determination: Moral Foundations for International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Robert Landenson (1980). ‘In Defense of a Hobbesian Conception of Law’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 9(2): 134–159.
John Simmons (1979). Moral Principles and Political Obligations. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Richard Miller (1998). ‘Cosmopolitan Respect and Patriotic Concern’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 27(3): 202–224.
Michael Blake (2001). ‘Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 30(3): 257–296.
H.L.A. Hart (1955). ‘Are There Any Natural Rights?’, The Philosophical Review 64: 175–191.
Again, Nagel is actually concerned about equality and justice rather than autonomy and legitimacy, but something similar to his argument might apply here. Thomas Nagel (2005). ‘The Problem of Global Justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 33(2): 113–147.
Andrew Hunell (2001). ‘Global Inequality and International Institutions’ in Thomas Pogge (ed.), Global Justice. M eta-philosophy Series in Philosophy A.T. Maroobian and Brian Huschle (eds), Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
For different accounts of legitimacy: Gillian Brock (1998). Necessary Goods: Our Responsibilities to Meet Others’ Needs. New York: Roman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.
Allen Buchanan (1990). ‘Justice as Reciprocity vs. Subject-Centered Justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 19(3): 227–252.
Simon Caney (2002). ‘Survey Article: Cosmopolitanism and the Law of Peoples’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 10(1): 95–133.
Thomas Pogge (2005). ‘Severe Poverty as a Human Rights Violation’ in Thomas Pogge (ed.), Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
There is room for reasonable disagreement about when people are competent to enter into contracts and the more stringent the conditions the more this chapter’s argument will show. The penultimate section will return to this issue, if implicitly. For some work on the notion of competence see: Allen Buchanan and Dan Brock (1989). Deciding for Others — The Ethics of Surrogate Decision Making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
See: John Rawls (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Thomas Pogge (1989). Realizing Rawls. New York: Cornell University Press.
See: Thomas Pogge (1989). Realizing Rawls. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Charles Beitz (1979). Political Theory and International Relations. New Jersy: Princeton University Press.
Jeremy Waldron (1987). ‘Theoretical Foundations of Liberalism’, Philosophical Quarterly 37(147): 133.
Will Kymlicka (1992). ‘The Eights of Minority Cultures: Reply to Kukathas’, PoliticalTheory 20(1): 140–146.
Bikhu Parekh (2000). RethinkingMulticulturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
It is not clear who holds this view, though some communitarians seem to think communities are independently valuable. See, for instance: Larry Blum (1994). Moral Perception and Particularity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Alaisdair MacIntyre (1988). Whose Justice, Which Rationality? Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press.
Charles Taylor (1992). Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Alisdair Macintire (1988). Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Charles Taylor (1998). ‘The Dynamics of Democratic Exclusion’, Journal of Democracy 9 (4): 153.
Chandran Kukathas (2003). The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Will Kymlicka (1992). ‘The Rights of Minority Cultures: Reply to Kukathas’, Political Theory 20(1): 140–146.
For global hypothetical consent theories see: Thomas Pogge (1989). Realizing Rawls. New York: Cornell University Press.
Charles Beitz (1979). Political Theory and International Relations. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
John Rawls (1993). Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press: 68–81.
John Rawls (1980). ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory’, Journal of Philosophy 88: 520–532.
David Held (1995). Democracy and the Global Order. Stanford: Stanford University Press, p. 233.
Jack Knight and James Johnson (1997). ‘What Sort of Political Equality Does Deliberative Democracy Require?’ in James Bohman and William Reh (eds), Deliberative Democracy. Boston: MIT Press.
David Held (1995). Democracy and the Global Order: From the Modern State to Cosmopolitan Governance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Thomas Christiano (1996). The Rule of the Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory. Boulder: Westview Press.
I argue elsewhere that libertarians should accept this premise, in part, because they should, as John Simmons argues, be actual consent theorists. I also respond to obvious objections to this claim. See: Nicole Hassoun (2011). ‘Libertarian Welfare Rights?’, Binghamton University Working Paper. Available here:http://harvey. binghamton.edu/∼nhassoun/bio.php; Nicole Hassoun (2012). Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance, Expanding Obligations. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
John Simmons (2005). ‘Consent Theory for Libertarians’, Social Philosophy and Policy 22(1): 330–356.
For further argument on this point see: Nicole Hassoun (2011) ‘Libertarian Welfare Rights?’, Binghamton University Working Paper. Available here: http://harvey.binghamton.edu/∼nhassoun/bio.php; Nicole Hassoun (2012). Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance, Expanding Obligations. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge
Harry Beran (1987). The Consent Theory of Political Obligation. New York: Coom Helm.
On Rawls’ theory, full autonomy requires more than the rational autonomy people possess in the original position. Rawls was also quite clear that even the rational autonomy attributed to the agents includes more than the minimal capacities at issue in the Legitimacy Argument. John Rawls (1980). ‘Kantian Constructivism in Moral Theory’, Journal of Philosophy 88: 532.
If institutional systems simply lack the resources to ensure that everyone who has the potential to secure basic reasoning and planning capacities does so, then further restrictions will be necessary. I discuss these issues in: Nicole Hassoun (2009b). ‘Meeting Need’, Utilitas 21(3): 250–275.
These tradeoffs would be particularly difficult if what fulfils one condition for legitimacy makes it more difficult to fulfil another condition. Before worrying about such tradeoffs, however, it is important to get clear on just what legitimacy requires in the first place. I leave inquiry into such matters for another time. See, Nicole Hassoun (2009b). ‘Meeting Need’, Utilitas 21(3): 250–275.
This section draws on: Nicole Hassoun (2008a). ‘World Poverty and Individual Freedom’, American Philosophical Quarterly 45(2): 191–198
Nicole Hassoun (2012). Globalization and Global Justice: Shrinking Distance, Expanding Obligations. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.
See: Thomas E. Hill Jr. (1989). ‘The Kantian Conception of Autonomy’ in John Christman (ed.), The Inner Citadel: Essays on Autonomy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Onora O’Neill (1986). Faces of Hunger: An Essay on Poverty, Justice and Development London: Allen and Unwin.
See: Joseph Raz (1998). The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
There are many ways of starting to make sense of this idea. One might, for instance, analyse the ability to make some significant plans on the basis of one’s commitments in terms of the ability to make one’s motivating commitments generally coherent. Alternately, one might give a decision-theoretic analysis of planning in terms of a consistent preference ordering. Yet another option is to cash out the ability to make some significant plans on the basis of one’s commitments in terms of ordering one’s ends perhaps by drawing on John Rawls’ work on plans of life. See, for instance: John Rawls (1971). A Theory of Justice. Massachusetts: Belknap Press. Also see: Michael Bratman (2005). ‘Planning Agency, Autonomous Agency’ in James Stacy Taylor (ed.), New Essays on Personal Autonomy and its Role in Contemporary Moral Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Michael Marmot (2004). Status Syndrome: How your Social Standing Directly Affects your Health and Life Expectancy. London: Bloomsbury.
Stress may contribute to a host of mental disorders. Stress can, for instance, cause panic attacks and depression. Psychological disorders can reduce the ability of one’s immune system to fight infection. See: David B. Beaton (2003). ‘Effects of Stress and Psychological Disorders on the Immune System.’ Rochester Institute of Technology Working Paper. New York: Rochester Institute of Technology.
See: Michelle Cullen and Harvey Whiteford (2001). ‘Inter-relations of Social Capital with Health and Mental Health.’ Mental Health and Special Programs Branch Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care Discussion Paper. Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care: Canberra. See also: Michael Woolcock (2001). ‘The Place of Social Capital in Understanding Social and Economic Outcomes’, Isuma 2(1). Available at: <http://www.isuma.net/v02n01/woolcock/woolcock_E.shtml>. Finally, see: Christopher G. Hudson (2005). ‘Socioeconomic Status and Mental Illness: Tests of the Social Causation and Selection Hypotheses’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 75(1): 3–18.
See: Joseph Raz (1998). The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
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Hassoun, N. (2014). Cosmopolitan Commitments: Coercion, Legitimacy and Global Justice. In: Brooks, T. (eds) New Waves in Global Justice. New Waves in Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286406_6
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