Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T20:25:59.330Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Profiting from poverty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Ole Koksvik
Affiliation:
University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Gerhard Øverland
Affiliation:
University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Abstract

We consider whether and under what conditions it is morally illicit to profit from poverty. We argue that when profit counterfactually depends on poverty, the agent making the profit is morally obliged to relinquish it. Finally, we argue that the people to whom the profit should be redirected are those on whom it counterfactually depends.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acharya, A. K., 2004. “Toward Establishing a Universal Basic Health Norm.” Ethics & International Affairs, 18 (3): 6578. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7093.2004.tb00477.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Alvarez, A., and Andrew, A.. 2007. “Threshold Considerations in Fair Allocation of Health Resources: Justice beyond Scarcity.” Bioethics, 21 (8): 426438. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00580.x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Anderson, E. S., 1999. “What Is the Point of Equality?Ethics, 109 (2): 287337. doi:10.1086/233897.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anwander, N., 2005. “Contributing and Benefiting: Two Grounds for Duties to the Victims of Injustice.” Ethics & International Affairs, 19 (01): 3945. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7093.2005.tb00488.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, C., and Øverland, G.. 2016. Responding to Global Poverty: Harm, Responsibility, and Agency. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, C., and Wiens, D.. 2014. “Benefiting from Wrongdoing and Sustaining Wrongful Harm.” Journal of Moral Philosophy, 123. doi:10.1163/17455243-4681052.Google Scholar
Bengson, J., 2015. “The Intellectual Given.” Mind; a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, 124 (495): 707760. doi:10.1093/mind/fzv029.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, S., 1995. “Thresholds for Rights.” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 33 (2): 143. doi:10.1111/j.2041-6962.1995.tb00737.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, S., 2009. “Moderate Deontology and Moral Gaps.” Philosophical Perspectives, 23: 2343. doi:10.1111/j.1520-8583.2009.00160.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, A., 1985. Ethics, Efficiency and the Market. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Butt, D., 2007. “On Benefiting from Injustice.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 37 (1): 129152. doi:10.1353/cjp.2007.0010.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butt, D., 2009. Recifying International Injustice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Butt, D., 2014. “‘A Doctrine Quite New and Altogether Untenable’: Defending the Beneficiary Pays Principle.” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31: 4. doi:10.1111/japp.12073.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caney, S., 2010. “Climate Change and the Duties of the Advantaged.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 13 (1): 203228. doi:10.1080/13698230903326331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, D. J., 2011. “Verbal Disputes.” Philosophical Review, 120 (4): 515566. doi:10.1215/00318108-1334478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chudnoff, E., 2011a. “The Nature of Intuitive Justification.” Philosophical Studies, 153 (2): 313333. doi:10.1007/s11098-010-9495-2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chudnoff, E., 2011b. “What Intuitions Are Like.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 82 (3): 625654. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2010.00463.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chudnoff, E., 2013. Intuition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chudnoff, E., 2014. “Is Intuition Based On Understanding?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 89 (1): 4267. doi:10.1111/phpr.2014.89.issue-1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, S., 2017. “Filling Collective Duty Caps.” Journal of Philosophy CXIV, 11: 573591. doi:10.5840/jphil20171141141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emran, S. N., and Kyriacou, J.. 2017. “What She Makes: Power and Poverty in the Fashion Industry.” http://whatshemakes.oxfam.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Living-Wage-Media-Report_WEB.pdf.Google Scholar
Goodin, R. E., 2013. “Disgorging the Fruits of Historical Wrongdoing.” American Political Science Review, 107 (3): 478491. doi:10.1017/S0003055413000233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodin, R. E., and Barry, C.. 2014. “Benefiting from the Wrongdoing of Others.” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31 (4): 363376. doi:10.1111/japp.12077.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haydar, B., and Øverland, G.. 2014. “The Normative Implications of Benefiting from Injustice.” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31 (4): 349362. doi:10.1111/japp.2014.31.issue-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holstrom, N., 1977. “Exploitation.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 7 (2): 353369. doi:10.1080/00455091.1977.10717024.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ILO. 2014. Wages and Working Hours in the Textiles, Clothing, Leather and Footwear Industries. ILO. http://ilo.org/sector/activities/sectoral-meetings/WCMS_241471/lang–en/index.htm.Google Scholar
Kagan, S., 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford Ethics Series. Oxford University Press. 10.1093/0198239165.001.0001.Google Scholar
Karnein, A., 2014. “Putting Fairness in Its Place: Why There Is a Duty to Take up the Slack.” Journal of Philosophy CXI, 11: 593607. doi:10.5840/jphil20141111138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Killoren, D., 2010. “Moral Intuitions, Reliability and Disagreement.” Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, 4 (1): 135. doi:10.26556/jesp.v4i1.39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koksvik, O., 2011. “Intuition.” The Australian National University. http://koksvik.net.Google Scholar
Koksvik, O., 2013. “Intuition and Conscious Reasoning.” Philosophical Quarterly, 63 (253): 709715. doi:10.1111/1467-9213.12071.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koksvik, O., 2017. “Phenomenology of Intuition.” Philosophy Compass, 12 (1): 11. doi:10.1111/phc3.12387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawford-Smith, H., 2014. “Benefiting from Failures to Address Climate Change.” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31 (4): 392404. doi:10.1111/japp.2014.31.issue-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawford-Smith, H., 2015. “What ‘We’?Journal of Social Ontology, 1 (2): 225249. doi:10.1515/jso-2015-0008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D., 1973a. “Causation.” Journal of Philosophy, 70 (17): 556567. doi:10.2307/2025310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D., 1973b. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lopez-Acevedo, G., and Robertson, R., eds. 2016. Stiches to Riches? Apparel Employment, Trade, and Economic Development in South Asia., Washington, DC: World Bank Group. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/23961/9781464808135.pdf.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maitland, I., 1997. “The Great Nondebate over International Sweatshops.” British Academy of Management Annual Conference, 597–608. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&btnG=Search&q=intitle:The+Great+Non-Debate+over+International+Sweatshops#0.Google Scholar
Meyers, C., 2004. “Wrongful Beneficence: Exploitation and Third World Sweatshops.” Journal of Social Philosophy, 35 (3): 319333. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9833.2004.00235.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D., 2007. National Responsibility and Global Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D., 2011. “Taking up the Slack? Responsibility and Justice in Situations of Partial Compliance.” In Responsibility and Distributive Justice, edited by Knight, C. and Stemplowska, Z.. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof.Google Scholar
Murphy, L., 2000. Moral Demands in Nonideal Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M. C., 1995. “Human Capabilities, Female Human Beings.” In Women, Culture and Development: A Study of Human Capabilities, edited by Nussbaum, M. C. and Glover, J.. 61104. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Øverland, G., 2013. “Pogge on Poverty: Contribution or Exploitation?Journal of Applied Philosophy, 30 (4): 319333. doi:10.1111/japp.2013.30.issue-4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parijs, P. V., 1991. “Why Surfers Should Be Fed: The Liberal Case for an Unconditional Basic Income.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 20 (2): 101131.Google Scholar
Pogge, T. W., 1992. “Loopholes in Moralities.” Journal of Philosophy, 89 (2): 7998. doi:10.2307/2027153.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pogge, T. W., 2008. World Poverty and Human Rights. Second. Polity. http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745641430.Google Scholar
Pryor, J., 2000. “The Skeptic and the Dogmatist.” Nous (Detroit, Mich.), 34 (4): 517549. doi:10.1111/0029-4624.00277.Google Scholar
Rawls, J., 1988. “The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 17 (4): 251276.Google Scholar
Reddy, S., and Lahoti, R.. 2016. “$1.90 A Day: What Does It Say?New Left Review, 97: 106127.Google Scholar
Reddy, S. G., and Pogge, T.. 2010. “How Not to Count the Poor.” In Debates on the Measurement of Global Poverty, edited by Anand, S., Segal, P., and Stiglitz, J. E.. 4285. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, A., 2009. “Poor, Relatively Speaking.” Oxford Economic Papers, New Series, 35 (2): 153169. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.oep.a041587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singer, P., 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1 (3): 229243.Google Scholar
Singer, P., 1999. The Life You Can Save. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R., 1968. “A Theory of Conditionals.” Edited by Rescher, Nicholas. American Philosophical Quarterly, 98–112. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-009-9117-0_2. doi:10.1055/s-0028-1105114CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Subramanian, S., 2015. “Identifying the Poor.” The Tribune, 2015. Accessed http://www.tribuneindia.com/news//identifying-the-poor/110420.html.Google Scholar
Swain, S., Alexander, J., and Weinberg, J. M.. 2008. “The Instability of Philosophical Intuitions: Running Hot and Cold on Truetemp.” Philosophy and Phenomological Research LXXXVI, 1: 138155. doi:10.1111/j.1933-1592.2007.00118.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waldron, J., 1992. “Superseding Historic Injustice.” Ethics, 103 (1): 428. doi:10.1086/293468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walton, M., Banerji, A., Cox, A. E., Diwan, I., Ghanem, H., Lindauer, D., Revenga, A., and Rutkowski, M.. 1995. “World Development Report 1995.” Oxford University Press. doi:10.1596/978-0-1952-1102-3.Google Scholar
Weinberg, J. M., 2007. “How to Challenge Intuitions Empirically without Risking Skepticism.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 31 (1): 318343. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4975.2007.00157.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinberg, J. M., Nichols, S., and Stich, S.. 2001. “Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions.” Philosophical Topics, 29 (1–2): 429460. doi:10.5840/philtopics2001291/217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wisor, S., 2011. Measuring Global Poverty: Toward a Pro-Poor Approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
WTO. n.d. “The Uruguay Round.” Accessed January 22, 2018. https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact5_e.htm.Google Scholar