Ethical Issues in Poverty Alleviation

280 Pages·2016·5.12 MB·English

by  Helmut P. Gaisbauer

Studies in Global Justice
Series Editor: Deen K. Chatterjee
Helmut P. Gaisbauer
Gottfried Schweiger
Clemens Sedmak E ditors
Ethical
Issues in
Poverty
Alleviation
Studies in Global Justice
STUDIES IN GLOBAL JUSTICE
VOLUME 14
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
Helmut P. Gaisbauer (cid:129) Gottfried Schweiger
Clemens Sedmak
Editors
Ethical Issues in Poverty
Alleviation
Editors
Helmut P. Gaisbauer Gottfried Schweiger
Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research
University of Salzburg University of Salzburg
Salzburg , Austria Salzburg , Austria
Clemens Sedmak
Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research
University of Salzburg
Salzburg , Austria
This publication was supported by Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) Austria
ISSN 1871-0409 ISSN 1871-1456 (electronic)
Studies in Global Justice
ISBN 978-3-319-41428-7 ISBN 978-3-319-41430-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41430-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953345
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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Printed on acid-free paper
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Contents
1 Ethical Issues in Poverty Alleviation: Agents, Institutions
and Policies .............................................................................................. 1
Helmut P. Gaisbauer , Gottfried Schweiger , and Clemens Sedmak
Part I Human Rights and Poverty Alleviation
2 Are We Violating the Human Rights of the World’s Poor? ................. 17
Thomas Pogge
3 A Decent Social Minimum as a Matter of Justice ................................ 43
Elena Pribytkova
4 Children’s Rights, Bodily Integrity and Poverty Alleviation .............. 57
Gunter Graf and Maria del Mar Cabezas
Part II Poverty Alleviation and Development
5 A Human Right to Financial Inclusion ................................................. 77
Jahel Queralt
6 Is Globalizing ‘development’ Ethical? A View from
the Pacific ................................................................................................. 93
Joy Paton and Elisabeth Valiente-Riedl
7 Animals in International Development, Ethics, Dilemmas
and Possibilities ....................................................................................... 113
Max Kelly
8 The Sustainable Development Goals: Pitfalls and Challenges
Where We Now Need to Start Making Progress .................................. 133
Gottfried Schweiger
v
vi Contents
Part III Poverty and Poverty Alleviation in the Welfare State
9 Relative Poverty as a Threat to Human Dignity: On the
Structural Injustice of Welfare States ................................................... 151
Christian Neuhäuser
10 Suffering Within, Suffering Without: Paradoxes of P overties
in Welfare States ...................................................................................... 171
Helmut P. Gaisbauer and Elisabeth Kapferer
11 Exclusion from Healthcare in Spain: The Responsibility
for Omission of Due Care ....................................................................... 191
Rosana Triviño , David Rodríguez-Arias , and Txetxu Ausín
Part IV Obligations to Poverty Alleviation
12 Poverty, Injustice and Obligations to Take Political Action ................ 209
Elizabeth Kahn
13 Beyond the Redistributive Paradigm: What Philosophers
Can Learn from Poor-Led Politics ........................................................ 225
Monique Deveaux
14 Migration in a World of Citizens, Nonsensical Morality
and Academia’s Role in Addressing Hidden Poverty .......................... 247
Tendayi Bloom
15 Poverty Alleviation: An Opportunity for Universities ......................... 259
Clemens Sedmak
About the Editors and Contributors
Editors
Helmut P. Gaisbauer is Senior Scientist at the Centre for Ethics and Poverty

Research, University of Salzburg. Recent publications include (with Gottfried
Schweiger and Clemens Sedmak) P hilosophical Explorations of Justice and
Taxation . Dordrecht: Springer 2015; (with Clemens Sedmak) “Neglected Futures.
Considering Overlooked Poverty in Europe”; and in the special issue of the
European Journal of Futures Research , “The Future of Europe”, 2014, 2–8.
Gottfried Schweiger is Senior Scientist at the Centre for Ethics and Poverty

Research, University of Salzburg, and there the Principal Investigator of the research
project “Social Justice and Child Poverty”, funded by the Austrian Science Fund
(FWF). Recent publications include (with Gunter Graf) “The Subjective Experience
of Poverty”, in N orthern European Journal of Philosophy 15 (2) 2015, 148–67, and
(with Gunter Graf) A P hilosophical Examination of Social Justice and Child
Poverty . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2015.
Clemens Sedmak i s FD Maurice Professor of Moral and Social Theology, King’s

College, London, and Associate Director of the Centre for Ethics and Poverty
Research, University of Salzburg. Recent publications include (edited by Elisabeth
Kapferer and Andreas Koch) Strengthening Intangible Infrastructures . Newcastle
upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2014, and Sustainability: Ethical
Perspectives, in C. Weidinger et al. (eds.): S ustainable Entrepreneurship, CSR,
Sustainability, Ethics & Governance . Berlin-Heidelberg: Springer 2014, 51–65.
vii
viii About the Editors and Contributors
Contributors
Txetxu Ausín is Tenured Scientist at the Institute of Philosophy of the Spanish

National Research Council in Madrid.
Tendayi Bloom is a Global Justice Program, MacMillan Center, Yale University,

New Haven, CT, USA.
Maria del Mar Cabezas i s Postdoc at the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research,

University of Salzburg.
Monique Deveaux is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Global

Social Change, University of Guelph.
Gunter Graf is Postdoc at the international research centre for social and ethical

questions and also works at the Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, University
of Salzburg.
Elizabeth Kahn i s SNSF Ambizione Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of

Basel, and also JSD Candidate at Columbia Law School.
Elisabeth Kapferer i s Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research, University of

Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
Max Kelly is Senior Lecturer in International and Community Development at

Deakin University.
Christian Neuhäuser Institut für Philosophie und Politikwissenschaft, Dortmund,

Germany
Joy Paton is an Honorary Associate in the Department of Political Economy,

University of Sydney and Senior Research Associate in the School of Social
Sciences and Psychology at Western Sydney University.
Thomas Pogge is Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs as well

as the founding Director of the Global Justice Program, Yale University.
Elena Pribytkova is Postdoc at the Faculty of Law, University of Basel, and also

JD candidate at Columbia Law School.
Jahel Queralt works as a Postdoc at the Ethics Centre of the University of Zurich.

David Rodríguez-Arias i s Ramón y Cajal Research Fellow at the Philosophy I

Department of the University of Granada.
Rosana Triviño is Lecturer at the Philosophy of Law Department of the University

of A Coruña.
Elisabeth Valiente-Riedl is Deputy Director of the Master of Human Rights and

Democratisation, University of Sydney.
Chapter 1
Ethical Issues in Poverty Alleviation: Agents,
Institutions and Policies
Helmut P. Gaisbauer , Gottfried Schweiger , and Clemens Sedmak
Abstract In this chapter we introduce the topics of this volume. We start by distin-
guishing and discussing three issues that are of importance for an ethical refl ection
on poverty alleviation: the defi nitions of poverty and poverty alleviation, the nor-
mative background theories of poverty alleviation and the identifi cation of the
agents and institutions of poverty alleviation. After discussing these we will go on
to present a brief overview of the chapters in this volume.
Keywords Poverty • Poverty alleviation • Human rights • Justice • Institutions
1.1 Introduction
I n today’s world, poverty is one of the most pressing social problems, and it is one
that has gained signifi cant and increasing attention from philosophers over the last
years. Whilst most of them agree that global poverty is morally wrong and unjust
we can fi nd large disagreement on how we should solve this problem and how we
should distribute the associated tasks and burdens of poverty eradication. This vol-
ume aims to contribute to this literature by focusing on philosophical, and more
precisely on ethical issues concerning the conceptualization, design and implemen-
tation of poverty alleviation measures from the local to the global level. In this
introduction we want to explore three issues that are closely connected with such an
ethical exploration of poverty alleviation: the defi nitions of poverty and poverty
alleviation, the normative background theories of poverty alleviation and the identi-
fi cation of the agents and institutions of poverty alleviation. We think every attempt
to ethically refl ect on poverty alleviation and every attempt to provide ethical guid-
ance for the practice of poverty alleviation has in some way or another to deal with
H. P. Gaisbauer (*) • G. Schweiger • C. Sedmak
Centre for Ethics and Poverty Research , University of Salzburg ,
Mönchsberg 2a , 5020 Salzburg , Austria
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected]
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1
H.P. Gaisbauer et al. (eds.), Ethical Issues in Poverty Alleviation, Studies in
Global Justice 14, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-41430-0_1