Responsibility in an Interconnected World: International Assistance, Duty, and Action

204 Pages·2016·1.96 MB·English

by  Susan P. Murphy (auth.)

Studies in Global Justice
Series Editor: Deen K. Chatterjee
Susan P. Murphy
Responsibility
in an
Interconnected
World
International Assistance, Duty, and
Action
Studies in Global Justice
Volume 13
Series Editor
Deen K. Chatterjee, University of Utah, U.S.A.
Editorial Board
Elizabeth Ashford, University of St. Andrews, U.K.
Gillian Brock, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Thom Brooks, Durham University, U.K.
Simon Caney, Oxford University, U.K.
Hiram E. Chodosh, President, Claremont McKenna College, U.S.A.
Jean-Marc Coicaud, Rutgers University, U.S.A.
Michael Doyle, Columbia University, U.S.A.
Andreas Follesdal, University of Oslo, Norway
Carol Gould, Hunter College, U.S.A.
Virginia Held, City University of New York, U.S.A.
Alison Jaggar, University of Colorado, U.S.A.
Jon Mandle, SUNY, Albany, U.S.A.
Richard W. Miller, Cornell University, U.S.A.
Sanjay Reddy, The New School for Social Research, U.S.A.
David Rodin, University of Oxford, U.K.
Joel H. Rosenthal, President, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
Kok-Chor Tan, University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Leif Wenar, King’s College London, U.K.
Veronique Zanetti, University of Bielefeld, Germany
Aims and Scope
In today’s world, national borders seem irrelevant when it comes to international
crime and terrorism. Likewise, human rights, poverty, inequality, democracy,
development, trade, bioethics, hunger, war and peace are all issues of global rather
than national justice. The fact that mass demonstrations are organized whenever the
world’s governments and politicians gather to discuss such major international
issues is testimony to a widespread appeal for justice around the world.
Discussions of global justice are not limited to the fi elds of political philosophy
and political theory. In fact, research concerning global justice quite often requires
an interdisciplinary approach. It involves aspects of ethics, law, human rights,
international relations, sociology, economics, public health, and ecology. Springer’s
new series Studies in Global Justice up that interdisciplinary perspective. The series
brings together outstanding monographs and anthologies that deal with both basic
normative theorizing and its institutional applications. The volumes in the series
discuss such aspects of global justice as the scope of social justice, the moral
signifi cance of borders, global inequality and poverty, the justifi cation and content
of human rights, the aims and methods of development, global environmental
justice, global bioethics, the global institutional order and the justice of intervention
and war.
Volumes in this series will prove of great relevance to researchers, educators and
students, as well as politicians, policy-makers and government offi cials.
More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/6958
Susan P. Murphy
Responsibility in an
Interconnected World
International Assistance, Duty, and Action
Susan P. Murphy
School of Natural Sciences
Trinity College Dublin
Dublin 2 , Ireland
ISSN 1871-0409 ISSN 1871-1456 (electronic)
Studies in Global Justice
ISBN 978-3-319-31443-3 ISBN 978-3-319-31445-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31445-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940517
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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For Shane, Eva, Tara and Conn

Pref ace
G iving assistance is a widespread practice that has grown into a virtual industry.
Intended to facilitate and mediate between those in desperate need and those with a
capacity to assist, it operates at a global level, delivering assistance wherever and
whenever the need is most pressing. The practice of assistance can aim at the most
fundamental end of saving lives through the provision of food, shelter and protec-
tion, water and sanitation and medical support in times of urgent need. It can also
include longer term ends including poverty reduction, improvements in health and
education, the delivery of public services and protection of public goods, and gener-
ally a wide array of strategies intended to improve the lives and livelihoods of the
poorest members of the global community.
H owever, the practice is experiencing problems. Firstly, there is a growing body
of evidence that points to problems in the practical application of aid. It seems that
its instruments and activities can fail to achieve the goal of helping others and, in
some cases, have been found to contribute to harm. Secondly, this has led some to
suggest that the aid industry is in turmoil, marked by an absence of clear moral
guidelines. Why one acts to give assistance to another directly informs how one
acts. It can guide and inform which actions are permissible and, of equal signifi -
cance, which actions are not permissible. It establishes the breadth and reach, the
extent and limits, of the courses of action one can undertake. However, it seems that
many within this practice are now refl ecting both on their actions and their reasons
for acting, and asking if these are fi t for purpose in the complex contemporary cir-
cumstances of assistance. Finally, if harm does arise in the practice of aid, the ques-
tion of who ought to do what for whom to address and remediate such harm is
unclear. These problems point to important moral questions requiring a strong phil-
osophical response.
In response to this uncertainty and unease, this book takes on the thorny task of
examining which ethical framework provides the most appropriate guide to action
for agents within the contemporary context. Of course much turns on how one
defi nes the term appropriate. I argue that the most appropriate framework from a
donor’s perspective is one that supports an agent to act in order to help another,
while considering the moral problem of harmful outcomes – how to avoid these,
vii
viii Preface
how to provide redress if this is required and how to determine what responsibilities
fl ow from aid action. From the perspective of the aid recipient, this book argues that
the most appropriate framework is one in which aid that is required is delivered to
those most in need and that is sensitive to the social and cultural context in which it
is placed. Thus, the account of aid that is developed through these pages is one that
seeks to balance the agency of both the one in need (the recipient) as well as those
giving assistance (the donor). It seeks to move the debate beyond the question of
‘how much is enough’. Although this question is important and highly relevant in a
world marked by deep inequality and interconnection, debates on this topic typi-
cally do not extend to consideration of the practice that follows, and questions
related to what is most appropriate, who decides, how can the essential agency of
the recipient be respected through this practice and how this practice generates new
relationships and special ties between those across spatial and temporal distances
and diverse populations.
B eginning with an outline of the practical problems and context in which con-
temporary aid is practiced, the following chapters examine the philosophical dimen-
sions of the problem and the claim that there is a tension between the two dominant
ethical approaches underlying this practice – principle-based deontology and
outcome-b ased consequentialism. To unpack this claim, it critically analyses con-
temporary accounts of the philosophical basis of assistance as deontological and
consequentialist respectively, against foundational accounts of the moral duty to
assist in these two philosophical perspectives, highlighting both their points of con-
nection and confl ict.
It then turns to an examination of leading accounts of the duty to aid that cut
across the philosophical traditions. These include narrow, instructive accounts that
seek to secure this moral duty through a precise specifi cation of the act-types and
actions required; and broad, disruptive accounts that seek to provide space for more
creative and innovative expressions of this duty both within and beyond the con-
straints of the contemporary aid industry. It examines instructive practical applica-
tions of this duty in the work of Rawls and Singer, and argues that these accounts
fail to resolve the underlying issues and do not address the practical problems faced
by this industry. The alternative approaches of O’Neill and Sen are found to avoid
these problems in giving accounts of agency and practical reason that this duty
requires for its expression. Thus, both deontological and consequentialist approaches
can provide a basis for the practice of aid in the contemporary context, but in differ-
ent ways and for different reasons. Further analysis fi nds that only an elaboration of
a broad consequentialist approach, elaborating on a Senian framework, can provide
a secure, practical and appropriate basis for moral action that can minimise harmful
outcomes and provide a moral basis for further action based upon the interconnec-
tions and connections generated through the act of giving.
W hat is termed the interconnected ethical account of the nature and scope of the
duty to assist is then developed and defended. Through an elaboration of the ele-
ments of unavoidable interconnection, responsible action, inclusive engagement
and accumulative duties and responsibilities, this approach has the potential to over-
come the problems identifi ed in other accounts and provides guidance to aid
Preface ix
p ractitioners, donors and recipients in the complex contemporary circumstances of
assistance. Further, this approach sheds light on the network of moral obligations,
rights and responsibilities that can arise through the act of assisting another and
highlights the links between acting upon a duty to assist, responsibilities for these
actions and how such actions link with incremental moral duties that can amass as
a consequence of such actions.
Dublin 2, Ireland Susan P. Murphy