Justice in assistance: a critique of the ‘Singer Solution’

This article begins with an examination of Peter Singer's ‘solution’ to global poverty as a way to develop a theory of ‘justice in assistance.’ It argues that Singer's work, while compelling, does not seriously engage with the institutions necessary to relieve global poverty. In order to r...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Blunt, Gwilym David 1980- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group [2015]
In: Journal of global ethics
Year: 2015, Volume: 11, Issue: 3, Pages: 321-335
Further subjects:B Peter Singer
B Justice
B Poverty
B Humanitarianism
B Non-ideal theory
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:This article begins with an examination of Peter Singer's ‘solution’ to global poverty as a way to develop a theory of ‘justice in assistance.’ It argues that Singer's work, while compelling, does not seriously engage with the institutions necessary to relieve global poverty. In order to realise our obligations it is necessary to employ secondary agents, such as non-governmental organisations, that produce complex social relationships with the global poor. We should be concerned that the affluent and their secondary agents are complicit with unjust institutions or can be the source of injustice. What is needed is a theory of justice in assistance. This is a distinct area of justice theory because these agents are not primary agents, like states, but they often provide the basic social goods that we associate with primary agents. The article ends by putting forward a provisional conception of justice in assistance based on the republican idea of non-domination.
ISSN:1744-9634
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of global ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/17449626.2015.1055780