World Poverty and Human Rights Philosophy Essay. This philosophy essay is critical analysis of Section One of Jan Narvesons (2005) article, Welfare and Wealth, Poverty and Justice in Today's World. My analysis defends the egalitarianian cosmopolitanis

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World Poverty and Human Rights

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Abstract:

This philosophy essay is critical analysis of Section  One of Jan Narveson’s (2005) article, Welfare and Wealth, Poverty and Justice in Today's World. My analysis defends the egalitarianian cosmopolitanism of Thomas Pogge, as argued in his book World Poverty and Human Rights. Narveson, an anarcho-capitalist, is of the stance that the people of the developed countries are not morally responsible for the current and historic poverty of the developed world, drawing on libertarian and mutual advantage theories of justice. Pogge, in contrast attributed the responsibility to the corrupt global economic order, which is, as Pogge argues, is at least to a substantial extent caused by the activities of the developed world.

Keywords: World poverty, human rights, egalitarianism, libertarianism, economics.

Critical Analysis of Section one.

Narveson’s approach to the problem of world poverty is undoubtedly libertarian. Pogge as an egalitarian heavily influenced by the work of John Rawls has quite opposing stance to Narveson in many ways. Narveson’s first section, which this essay focuses its critique on, deals with question of whether we are morally obligated to respond to the problem of world poverty. He is the opinion that we, the ordinary people of the developed world, are not morally  responsible and that in fact the egalitarian standing is harmful to human kind on a moral level. This essay will evaluate Narveson’s section one against the work of Pogge.

Narveson dismisses traditional egalitarianism as both “irrational” and “counterproductive”, and as being rarely defended critically by philosophers but rather taken as an unquestionable doctrine. These three clams have been and can be again, readily refuted and dispersed. In fact is it more likely that writers like Pogge will strongly argue the principles of egalitarianism to be quite the opposite of Narverson’s emphatic concerns.

Narveson is quick to claim that egalitarianism, if at all feasible as a moral theory, has been unhelpfully defined. He sees egalitarianism as the moral theory that “all persons have a general right, as against all other persons, to be supplied with (if they do not already have and cannot on their own  acquire) an approximately equal amount of some  commensurable and variable good, at the expense of all who have more of this good”(p.3). However, according to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, a truer reflection of the approach may be that it is the view that “People should get the same, or be treated the same, or be treated as equals, in some respect” (Arneson, 2009). The difference between these two definitions is emphasis on treatment in the latter definition and the emphasis on expense to other in the former. This essay will draw on this difference throughout in defence of the egalitarian standing of Pogge.

 He does not support the notion that all who are better-off have to give up their “welfare”, which seems to equate with Pogge’s idea of “human flourishing”, for the sake ensuring that all have an “approximately equal amount of some commensurable and variable good” (p.1, Narveson). Instead he defines his type of libertarian egalitarianism as one that uses the currency of liberty as the basis of the theory.

Both Narveson and Pogge agree that impartiality goes hand-in-hand with any moral theory.  Yet their interpretations of the notion of impartiality is where the clash lies. Narveson seems to draw a hasty conclusions on Brian Barry’s preference for impartiality over mutual advantage as “just plain wrong”. Yet Pogge, Rawls or I would not agree with Barry’s assertion. We are likely to agree that mutual advantage and impartiality are compatible and part of the one theory. As was originally explained by Hume, (Sudgen,1991) justice as impartiality is about the acceptance of egalitarian rules of justice, as a result of the general observance of these rules as working for the good of all. The principle of impartiality is the basis for other Rawlsian principles including the maximin principle. According to this principle, social cooperation generates benefits that would not otherwise exist; therefore no-one actually loses. Narveson overlooks and dismisses – this idea of interdependencies and interconnectedness among nations of the world.

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Narveson goes on to portray mutual advantage as better a theory due the assertion that “no one loses” (.p2, section 1.3) instead of the imposition of loss on better-off people. According to his, we shouldn’t complain because without the agreement we would gain less anyway, he argues.  His arguments make sense initially but on greater inspection they lose their viability.

He says that the terms posed are erroneous – not mutual advantage vs impartiality but mutual advantage vs imposed equality.  Narveson points out that egalitarianism are assuming that we will all agree to give up things for those who have ...

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