I’ve been planning to write about John Rawls’s theory of international justice – what he calls “the law of peoples” – when I have a little more time. But Eric Alterman has posted a letter from “David” in Baltimore that touches on the subject, and this seems like a good excuse to say something. Here, I only want to try to clarify Rawls’s position, rather than to evaluate it.
David’s main point concerns the “public misperception of US foreign aid”, and I agree that “the issue can[’t] be emphasized enough.” He proceeds to quote from Peter Singer’s book, One World: The Ethics of Globalization: “Citizens of the United States should feel particularly troubled about their country’s contribution. Among the developed nations of the world, ranked according to the proportion of their Gross National Product that they give as development aid, the United States comes absolutely, indisputably, last.” And he then quotes from various surveys that show how wildly most Americans overestimate the extent of aid.
But David prefaces his extended quote from Singer by making this point: Singer is critical of Rawls because “Rawls’ late work on international justice fails to follow through on the spirit of his earlier ideas, insofar as he rejects the application of his earlier standard of distributive justice to the international arena.” (I can’t resist pointing out that Singer famously rejects Rawls’s principles of domestic justice.) This is an accurate summary of Singer’s objection – many others have made it as well – but in this context, the implication might seem to be that Rawls would not object to the stinginess of the American development assistance.
It is true that Rawls thinks different standards of justice should be used in the domestic and international spheres. Domestically, Rawls endorses his “difference principle”, according to which economic schemes are to be evaluated according to their likely effect on the least-advantaged. Although he does not believe that all domestic economic inequalities are unjust, he places the burden of proof squarely on the shoulders of those who would defend structural inequalities. It is fair to call him an egalitarian.
In the international sphere, Rawls is not an economic egalitarian. He does not believe that an inequality in wealth between two countries is even prima facie evidence of injustice. On the other hand, he does hold that wealthy countries have a duty of assistance to assist (many) poor countries – those that he calls “burdened societies.” These are societies that “lack the political and cultural traditions, the human capital and know-how, and, often, the material and technological resources needed to be well-ordered.” Relatively wealthy and well-ordered societies should aim to “help burdened societies to be able to manage their own affairs reasonably and rationally and eventually to become members of the Society of well-ordered Peoples.” Once a burdened society reaches that threshold – what Rawls calls the “target” – further assistance to narrow remaining economic inequalities is not required by justice.
In discussing the duty of assistance, Rawls’s focus is on the long-term development of self-sufficiency. But nothing he says is incompatible with the obvious need for assistance to address short-term crises, as well. In fact, he seems to suggest that from time to time even countries that are generally well-ordered and self-sufficient may face crises that require assistance.
The poverty and extreme deprivation that Singer has done so much to highlight occurs largely in burdened societies. The United States is clearly failing to fulfill its duty to assist these countries to reach the point where they can “manage their own affairs reasonably and rationally”.
Nonetheless, many followers of Rawls – most, I would guess – insist that much more is required beyond the threshold of self-sufficiency. They hold that his egalitarian domestic principles should apply internationally, as well. Any inequality – even among countries that are above the threshold and are self-sufficient, even among those that are wealthy – is unjust, unless a specific case can be made otherwise. To my mind, Rawls did not do an adequate job explaining his grounds for endorsing different principles in the domestic and international spheres. But I said I wasn’t going to evaluate his principles here …
{ 28 comments }
Dick Thompson 07.16.03 at 2:22 pm
Well if that’s the definition – “burdened societies” – then the huge costs of the Iraq invasion should be added to the amounts that the US gives. For will anyone deny that Iraq, pre invasion, was burdened? And was it not the general opinion that the key to unburdening was the removal of its hideous government? And wasn’t this accomplished in a military way that tried as much as possible to avoid collateral damage to the population?
Jon 07.16.03 at 3:00 pm
Although the Bush Administration tried out just about every justification they could come up with, I don’t remember anyone suggesting that war was necessary for Iraqi economic development. On the other hand, I might have missed it, and their story is still changing enough that it might not be too late…
Actually, Rawls would classify Iraq under Saddam Hussein not as a “burdened society” but as an “outlaw state”. This is because it consistently violated basic human rights. I don’t think anyone seriously disputes that. Obviously, the controversial questions concern the appropriate and just responses to those violations.
pathos 07.16.03 at 3:01 pm
A few points:
1. Japan may contribute more in foreign aid than the U.S., but the U.S. contributes all of Japan’s defense spending. It is hard to say who is being more altruistic — would Japan contribute anything if they suddenly had to defend themselves?
2. For the other countries, we’ve chosen to go by percentages, rather than absolute dollars. In absolute dollars, the U.S. contributes more.
3. The U.S. contributes to more peacekeeping missions than anyone else, which is a kind of foreign aid.
4. The letter discussed how the U.S. aid is distributed for political purposes, but that is true for all countries. Europe and the U.N. are double-handedly supporting the Palestinian territories, and lots of that money gets funnelled into helping terrorists.
5. Foreign aid to dictatorships often does zero help. If a dictator is giving $1 billion to help his people and $1 billion to support his military, and $1 billion is foreign aid comes in, the dictator is more likely to just spend $2 billion on his military.
Jonathan Goldberg 07.16.03 at 3:23 pm
Pathos:
I don’t have a reference readily available, but IIRC point 1 is wrong. Although Japanese military spending is low by US standards, Japan has one of the larger defense budgets around. All other countries have low military budgets by US standards.
Also, I have to say that I find point two tendentious. Normalization by percentages is standard practice in comparisons like this, for obvious and execllent reasons.
tristero 07.16.03 at 3:39 pm
Forgive my ignorance of Rawls, etc., but what he says seems patently obvious to the point of platitude.
Of course, “have” nations like the US have a moral duty to aid burdened societies until they are no longer burdened. Such extreme disparity in wellbeing is clearly unjust, regardless of the cause.
Again, pardon my ignorance about this field, but does anyone other than a few Randians disagree with this? This strikes me as Human Morality 101.
The real issue is that there is no way to generalize in a useful mannter about foreign assistance and therefore discussions about the nuances of Rawls’ point -level of inequalities, inconsistent treatment – seem all but pointless. Every unhappy nation is unhappy in its own way – dealing with the problems of burdened societies requires people who are not only experts about economics in general, but experts in particular cultures and countries.
Apparently, this is rather an odd notion, more honored in the breach. In Globalization and Its Discontents, I was amazed to read that apparently many people setting economic policy at the World Bank and the IMF have absolutely no background in the particular concerns of the target country. The same is certainly true vis a vis Afghanistan/Iraq/Middle East in the US at the highest levels. In fact, when it was learned that Tommy Franks’ successor actually spoke fluent Arabic, that unusual skill was touted in the press.
No, the president of the US doesn’t need to know Arabic (although it couldn’t hurt). Nevertheless, how can any foreign aid -in the general sense of any monies/policies/goods/services proferred to help another country – be very effective unless you know to whom it goes?
kokomo 07.16.03 at 3:42 pm
No, Dick, the overthrow of Saddam was not conducted in a manner “that tried as much as possible to avoid collateral damage to the population.”
If so, surely some thought would have been given, and substantially more resources dedicated, to replacing the institutional structures we destroyed with functioning alternatives.
I do not doubt that direct collateral damage from bombs and bullets was limited as much as possible. But what of the “collateral damage” arising from the institutional vaccum? Dehydration, heat exhaustion, rape, etc…
A bit of planning, and a bit less hubris, may have mitigated these problems.
back40 07.16.03 at 3:57 pm
How does aid help development? Has aid been useful for national or international development? Aren’t current aid amounts trivial compared to income losses from trade barriers? Wouldn’t fair trade be immediately and continuously more useful for distribution of wealth AND development than small transfers of money?
It doesn’t seem that Rawls, Alterman or “David” are interested in development or justice so much as in advancing a political theory.
Scott Martens 07.16.03 at 4:12 pm
Pathos,
1 – Japan spends about 1% of GDP on defense, and covers 40% of the cost of US forces stationed in Japan. The US spends about 7% of its GDP on defense. America does not pay for all of Japan’s defense spending. Japanese foreign aid is about 40% as large as its defense spending while US foreign aid comes to about 1% of the size of its defense budget. I don’t think there’s a point to be made in claiming that US foreign aid is so small because its defense spending is so high. If there was the money to raise defense spending to these levels, there should have been enough money to increase foreign aid a great deal without meaningfully cutting defense.
2 – The US economy is some three times larger than Japan’s yet its foreign aid budget is nearly identical. Had you compared the US with an economy of comparable size – say the EU – you would find that the US spends less than half as much on aid. Besides, something like half of all US foreign aid goes to just two countries, and something like half is military rather than development aid.
3 – The US has obtained a 25% cap on all its contributions to the UN peacekeeping budget, making EU contributions larger than US contributions. If you count US direct contributions to peacekeeping in Afghanistan, you might be able to get the figures back up but then you have to count all countries’ non-UN budget contributions to maintaining their own peacekeeping troops. By that count, US contributions drop even further.
4 – Half of all US aid goes to Israel and Egypt for political reasons. What percentage of EU aid goes to the PA?
5 – Not all the poor countries in the world are dictatorships and US aid spending is overwhelmingly military rather than humanitarian. Compare US aid to Zaire under Mobutu to its aid to the multi-party democracy Senegal during the same period. Also note the distribution of US aid in Columbia – almost all of it goes to the military. You would have a better case if the aid budget was not so heavily tilted towards military spending and historically so independent of democratic governance.
Micha Ghertner 07.16.03 at 5:13 pm
Tristero,
Of course, “have†nations like the US have a moral duty to aid burdened societies until they are no longer burdened. Such extreme disparity in wellbeing is clearly unjust, regardless of the cause.
Again, pardon my ignorance about this field, but does anyone other than a few Randians disagree with this? This strikes me as Human Morality 101.
I deny this and I have a feeling that the vast majority of people living in “have” nations, as you put it, would deny it as well, if they actually followed the argument to its logical conclusions.
Peter Singer, in an article he wrote for the New York Times a few years ago (http://www.petersingerlinks.com/solution.htm), argued that we, as individuals, have a moral obligation to give all of our income above and beyond the absolute minimum threshold necessary to sustain ourselves to international charities that feed starving children in third-world countries.
The fact that most people don’t do this, including Singer and most of the people reading this blog, leads me to believe that most people don’t actually take egalitarianism seriously, at least when it requires a significant amount of effort on the part of the individual to fulfill their moral duty.
Dan Hardie 07.16.03 at 6:49 pm
>Had you compared the US with an economy of comparable size – say the EU – you would find that the US spends less than half as much on aid. < Looked at agricultural tariffs and subsidies? The US system stinks, but the EU's system stinks three times as much. >The US spends about 7% of its GDP on defense.< Nope: under Clinton it was 3% or just over, and this fiscal year the Wall St Journal estimates it will come to 3.5% of GDP. >Peter Singer, in an article he wrote for the New York Times a few years ago (http://www.petersingerlinks.com/solution.htm), argued that we, as individuals, have a moral obligation to give all of our income above and beyond the absolute minimum threshold necessary to sustain ourselves to international charities that feed starving children in third-world countries.< Hmm. Want to know what the two main sources of hard currency were for the racist Hutu regime in Rwanda? A state-controlled coffee industry and, er, foreign aid (state and NGO).Read Gerard Prunier's book on Rwanda. Dependency culture: not necessarily a good thing. Discussing the morality of relationships between rich and poor states without mentioning trade, but only aid, is a little on the dim side.
Micha Ghertner 07.16.03 at 7:03 pm
Dan,
If you noticed, I was arguing against the idea that there is a moral obligation to give foreign aid. And I agree that trade is a much better means of helping the poor than direct aid. However, for those who do advocate direct aid as a moral obligation, I am pointing out that few put their money where their mouths are.
Regardless, your Rwandan example doesn’t do much to rebut Peter Singer’s argument. Singer argues that individuals should give their money to organizations like Oxfam and UNICEF, and not directly to governments that are likely to misuse it.
m@butler 07.16.03 at 7:42 pm
It is a mistake to conclude, just because real people in the real world don’t or can’t adhere fully to a moral theory, that the principle is invalid. Moral philosophy tries to offer an ideal – a gold standard of how one ought to act, if one were a perfectly moral being. Since one is not perfect, one can only strive to approximate perfection, often very roughly, while dealing with one’s own limitations.
Almost everyone wishes to behave in a way that is right and decent. But this is hardly the only thing that motivates us. Every one of us (and that includes Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and even Peter Singer) is influenced by a host of selfish desires, from the basic (food, security, sex) to the grandiose (fame, power, luxury goods). These aren’t intrinsically evil, but they are often conflict with the dictates of morality. The task of being a decent person is find a balace between selfish urges and moral ones. People like Singer can help us to understand and refine the moral ones, but striking a balance we can live with is something each of us must do alone. The fact that most of us most of the time fall far short of his high standards does not mean the standards should be lowered (as they are in many absolutist moral systems, which give you a do-this-and-you’re-off-the-hook checklist); it just shows us that being good is hard, and we can always do better.
No one demands that U.S. foreign policy be morally perfect. No one expects that, just because it is fabulously wealthy, it will also be fabulously generous. But it is galling when it presents policies that are starkly self-interested, and in many cases harmful to those outside the U.S., as pursuing the highest good. This prevents people from critically evaluating the morality of government actions, and thus prevents the country from striving to do better. Such is the case when military assistance to help Isreal and Colombia wage their respective (and morally dubious) conflicts is quoted as part of the foreign aid budget, conjuring up images of drilling wells in African villages. And it is certainly the case of decades of overt and covert interference in sovereign countries. Such interference is (with arguable exceptions) pursued for the strategic and economic benefit of the United States, but too many Americans allow themselves to be convinced that their government is doing the world some kind of favour. The “beneficiaries” of these favours tend to feel rather differently.
Businesspundit 07.16.03 at 8:11 pm
All of this is based on the assumption that giving monetary aid to countries is the best way to help them, and that is not necessarily true. In many countries, our aid simply lines the pockets of corrupt politicians. According to Hernando de Soto’s book “Mystery of Capital”, the US could do more for poor countries by simply helping/encouraging them to establish basic property rights and a good legal system that we could ever do by giving monetary aid.
aelph 07.16.03 at 8:11 pm
It doesn’t seem that Rawls, Alterman or “David†are interested in development or justice so much as in advancing a political theory.
I’m not going to speak to Alterman or “David” on this issue, but saying that Rawls is not “interested” in justice shows a great deal of ignorance about one of the most prominent thinkers on the the subject of the 20th century.
m@butler 07.16.03 at 9:21 pm
According to Hernando de Soto’s book “Mystery of Capitalâ€, the US could do more for poor countries by simply helping/encouraging them to establish basic property rights and a good legal system that we could ever do by giving monetary aid.
This is a version of the “cycle of dependency” argument used against welfare. The basic idea is that the most effective way to help people also happens, by happy coincidence, to be the cheapest. This is a seductive, almost-too-good-to-be-true notion, which does not make it wrong, but does make it suspect.
It is true that waste and corruption are serious problems in foreign aid spending, although controls have improved in recent years. It is also true that some governments are simply not fit to receive aid, no matter how needy their people may be.
However, political corruption alone is not responsible for the world’s poverty. The factors which allow a country to become self-sufficient are many and complex. They go far beyond “basic property rights and a good legal system”. And they cost money. de Soto may have many good suggestions about how money should be spent, what forms of aid offer the best ROI in terms of economic and human development. But if he claims that the problems of the underdeveloped wold can be solved for free – that they require only a pat on the shoulder and some legal advice – he’s peddling only wishful thinking.
Micha Ghertner 07.16.03 at 9:39 pm
m@butler,
It is a mistake to conclude, just because real people in the real world don’t or can’t adhere fully to a moral theory, that the principle is invalid.
I agree. My argument doesn’t disprove the contention that foreign aid is a moral obligation. Rather, it simply demonstrates, contrary to Tristero’s claims, that most people do not believe “extreme disparity in wellbeing is clearly unjust,” or at least most people don’t believe this enough to do anything about it.
In other words, extreme disparity in international welfare may or may not be just, but it is certainly not the case that most people believe it is unjust, unless we assume that most people are consciously choosing to act in an unjust manner.
I tend to not give much weight to arguments made by people who don’t live by the same principles they wish to persuade others to adopt. If you want to convince me to stop eating meat, you should become a vegetarian. If you wish to convince me that “extreme disparity in wellbeing is clearly unjust,” you should give all of your income above and beyond the absolute minimum threshold necessary to sustain yourself to international charities that feed starving children in third-world countries.
PG 07.16.03 at 10:07 pm
Micha, I think you’re conflating Rawls and Singer.
Political philosophy 101 (’cause that’s about as far as I got):
Singer is a utilitarian. Utilitarianism was the dominant ethical theory in the 20th century until Rawls resurrected Kantianism with Theory of Justice.
Rawls poked a big hole in utilitarianism with the crushing observation that it failed to respect the distinction between persons and recognize that humanity is not a mass of utility creation, but a mass of individuals.
Singer says we have to give until it hurts, and then throw in a couple more bucks. Rawls says that domestically, any structure needs to be one that maximizes advantage to the least well off.
This does support capitalism over communism; if one compares the situations of the poorest people in the Soviet Union with that of the poorest Americans, I think by most measures the Americans would have come out ahead.
I would guess that Rawls thinks different rules apply across borders because different societies have different conceptions of what it means to be well-off.
The distinctions between individuals, writ large, is the distinctions between societies.
Americans maximize well-offness by having relatively low unemployment (despite June’s 6.4% rate) and low social benefits; many other countries maximize well-offness by having relatively high unemployment and high social benefits.
We aren’t obligated to help the Swedes, and the Swedes aren’t obligated to help us, because we’re both democratic nations and thus presumably each satisfied with what we’re getting.
I think Rawls probably was more about structural aid than short-term disaster shipments of grain, though. Certainly, lowering trade barriers would be a structural aid that would help many economies become less burdened; the U.S. spends more in farm subsidies than it does in humanitarian aid.
Keep in mind that I’m talking out of my ass here, as it’s been a few years since I read any Rawls or Singer, and I never read much of them to begin with. But this is the semi-educated, nonphilosophy major’s understanding of them.
BTW, if you’ve ever seen how Singer dresses, it seems entirely plausible that he’s giving until it hurts. I’d be embarrassed to go out looking like that, and I’m a slob.
As I recall, the only point on which to “get” Singer for not giving enough to general charity is when he put his mother in a very nice care facility instead of using the money to feed starving Bangladeshis.
PG 07.16.03 at 10:13 pm
Micha, I think you’re also ignoring political action in favor of focusing entirely on individual action.
I give some money to charity, though since I’m dressing better than Singer, not to the point that it hurts. However, I’m also politically active and promote a U.S. foreign policy that will work to decrease the extreme disparities in international welfare.
Besides, I don’t mind the disparity so much as the objective misery.
People needn’t live to be 75 (average U.S. lifespan) but they ought to live to be at least 60.
People needn’t get chemotherapy that has only 25% chance of curing their cancer, but they oughtn’t be dying of malaria for lack of a $5 vaccination.
There is a better chance of altering more people’s outcomes, to a greater degree, if I devote my energy to political action. Institutional change means that we don’t have to play zero sum game, wherein I have to choose between going out tonight or feeding an Ethiopian child.
The whole point of Rawls’s acceptance of inequality as long as it maximized the utility of the least well off is that it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game, that we all can be better off.
pathos 07.16.03 at 10:17 pm
I may have mis-stated several points about relative defense costs between U.S. and Japan. I had thought that U.S. paid for all of it.
As for U.S. versus E.U., I agree with the above poster if you subtract out of E.U. aid the amount cost to 3rd world nations by agricultural subsidies, the amount of net aid is miniscule. What do they say about giving a man a fish versus teaching a man to fish? Europe is essentially stealing Africa’s fishing rod, and then giving it several fish instead.
As for the other points, the relevant point is that when addressing “private aid” they only discussed amounts given through charities. When a U.S. corporation closes a plant in America and opens one in a third world country, isn’t that private aid as well? Or must aid only be in the form of cash and food, never in the form of jobs?
I’d like to see an actual breakdown that included the value of jobs provided by foreign corporations in third world nations and the negative value of tariffs.
I don’t know how the numbers would turn out, but I doubt America would look as bad.
Micha Ghertner 07.16.03 at 11:18 pm
Pg,
Good comments. I’m aware of the utilitarian/difference principle distinction between Rawls and Singer. However, I’ve never really understood why Rawls believed that justice should apply differently to people based on their country of origin. If Rawls believed that justice necessitates maximizing the welfare of the least well-off, I don’t see why this same principle should cease to apply as we cross the border.
BTW, if you’ve ever seen how Singer dresses, it seems entirely plausible that he’s giving until it hurts. I’d be embarrassed to go out looking like that, and I’m a slob.
As I recall, the only point on which to “get†Singer for not giving enough to general charity is when he put his mother in a very nice care facility instead of using the money to feed starving Bangladeshis.
From a Reason interview with Singer conducted by Ronald Bailey:
Singer’s proclamation about income has also come back to haunt him. To all appearances, he lives on far more than $30,000 a year. Aside from the Manhattan apartment-he asked me not to give the address or describe it as a condition of granting an interview-he and his wife Renata, to whom he has been married for some three decades, have a house in Princeton. The average salary of a full professor at Princeton runs around $100,000 per year; Singer also draws income from a trust fund that his father set up and from the sales of his books. He says he gives away 20 percent of his income to famine relief organizations, but he is certainly living on a sum far beyond $30,000. When asked about this, he forthrightly admitted that he was not living up to his own standards. He insisted that he was doing far more than most and hinted that he would increase his giving when everybody else started contributing similar amounts of their incomes.
There is some question as to how seriously one should take the dictates of a person who himself cannot live up to them. If he finds it impossible to follow his own rules, perhaps that means that he should reconsider his conclusions. Singer would no doubt respond that his personal failings hardly invalidate his ideas.
http://reason.com/0012/rb.the.shtml
Micha, I think you’re also ignoring political action in favor of focusing entirely on individual action.
You are correct. I have difficulty conceptualizing how political action can be a stronger moral imperative than individual action. In other words, if governments have a moral obligation to help feed starving children in third-world countries, a fortiori, individuals should have an equal or greater moral obligation.
Besides, I don’t mind the disparity so much as the objective misery.
People needn’t live to be 75 (average U.S. lifespan) but they ought to live to be at least 60.
I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a heartless utilitarian, but if our goal is to reduce misery, shouldn’t we want to decrease the lifespans of miserable people rather than increase them?
There is a better chance of altering more people’s outcomes, to a greater degree, if I devote my energy to political action.
I highly doubt this is true, unless you are a politician or the director of some powerful interest group. As an individual voter, you are much more likely to save lives by donating to charity than you are by trying to influence the outcome of an election. When was the last time an important election came down to one vote?
Dick Thompson 07.17.03 at 12:30 am
Kokomo,
I agree that the after invasion situation was handled very badly, because the cabal that motivated the invasion (in my opinion) seriously misread the underlying mood and desires of the Iraqi people. Nevertheless, in the broadest sense what they were trying to do was to unburden those same Iraqi people.
The vision (or mirage) that they offered was ultimately to raise the whole arab world from its medieval burden, as they saw it.
Shai 07.17.03 at 1:53 am
rawls info on the internet:
here and here and here etc..
Dan Hardie 07.17.03 at 12:06 pm
Regardless, your Rwandan example doesn’t do much to rebut Peter Singer’s argument. Singer argues that individuals should give their money to organizations like Oxfam and UNICEF, and not directly to governments that are likely to misuse it.
I actually took some care to state that the aid whcich propped up the racist Habyarimana regime in Rwanda came from donor states and NGOs- NGOs, Micha, being ‘organizations like Oxfam and UNICEF’. I really don’t think you will read Prunier (full title ‘The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide’) but you know, he’d tell you a damn sight more about the realities of relationships between the developed and underdeveloped world than Singer will.
Even more germane is Alex de Waal’s book ‘Famine Crimes’, one of the main themes of which is that money from NGOs (including Oxfam and Unicef) is often given in ways that prolong and intensify political persecution and war. De Waal gets angriest about the Sudan, and Rwanda. Again, well worth reading, but I have to say I doubt that you will actually read it. Stick to Peter Singer instead. I mean, he knows *so much* about modern Africa, doesn’t he? Almost as much as I know about neurosurgery.
Walt Pohl 07.17.03 at 3:20 pm
Attacking Singer’s argument is too easy: it’s pretty obviously silly. But Rawls’ position, that we have some duty to help people in other countries in dire straits, is much closer to what the average person thinks.
I don’t see why US military spending on behalf of other countries shouldn’t be counted. Why shouldn’t the money the US spent towards defending Western Europe, and the money that it spends now defending South Korea not count?
Even the money the US spent on the Iraq war arguably counts, if you think the war is a good idea. And if you don’t think it’s a good idea, then how much of the aid spending by other countries really turns out to be a good idea?
Not that I an adverse to the US spending more on foreign aid. It’s just that the fact that the US spends less on foreign aid then comparible countries is being taken out of its greater context: that the US does devote a lot of time and money to efforts whose effect is intended to improve the lot of other countries.
Shai 07.17.03 at 10:47 pm
In response to Don Hardie re Singer and charity:
see google “demandingness objection”
Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy consequentialism
Dale Jamieson, Singer and His Critics
Brad Hooker reviews Singer and His Critics,in Mind111, 2002, pp. 122-26
Tim Mulgan, The Demands of Consequentialism (with sample chapter)
Brad Hooker reviews Mulgan’s Demands of Consequentialism, in Philosophy71, 2003, pp. 289-96
Brad Hooker, Ideal Code, Real World
Samuel Scheffler ed., Consequentialism and its Critics
Phillip Pettit ed., Consequentialism
Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
etc. there are plenty of views either way (I’ve limited it to links within utilitarianism/consequentialism here)
Decnavda 07.18.03 at 3:44 am
I actually like Rawls’ standards for foriegn aid. I agree that it is intellectually inconsistent with his standards for domestic redistribution, but I would resolve the descrepency the opposite way of that suggest in the post, by applying his foriegn aid standards to domestic redistribution.
dsquared 07.18.03 at 5:18 pm
The way Rawls was explained to me, his political philosophy was all about being able to justify social arrangements to the worst off. So “it makes you better off than you would be otherwise” is a good explanation to a British proleterian (maximin), and “You can’t have an American lifestyle without joining American society” is a good reason to explain to a Frenchman why he can’t benefit from redistribution from another country (law of peoples). The point at which international obligations kick in is the point at which the justification “we can’t do this without erasing the difference between our countries which is something you value” becomes ridiculous.
back40 07.18.03 at 6:08 pm
The concept of material redistribution as a remedy for lack of development, poverty and misery is legalistic, sapless, “as cold as Presbyterian charity”. The basic error is the inversion of compassion to focus on the benefit of charity to the giver of aid rather than the receiver. The receiver is expected to be grateful and respectful of the magnanimity of the charitable donor, the donor feels virtuous for having made a small sacrifice to benefit strangers.
The purpose of such charity is to conceal the social crimes the giver has committed that contribute to the poverty of the needy. The purpose of criticism of the US for giving a low percentage of GDP in aid is to conceal the much worse crimes committed by other developed countries, especially in Europe and Japan, of using subsidies and trade barriers to prevent development in other economies which threaten a much more complete and permanent redistribution of earning ability.
Materialist analysis of society fails to account for human needs. Redistribution of material is not human, it is legalistic and cold. It fails to consider the social death of excluding large numbers of people from participation in society as productive and valued members who have a voice in, and influence over, their immediate environment of work and community.
Social organizations that deny useful participation to large numbers of humans are inhuman, cold. They not only fail as economic systems, they fail as social systems. The reasons for both failures are the same. By excluding large numbers of humans from participation their contributions of mind as well as hands are lost to society. The whole idea of material distribution, of providing such wasted minds with minimum material needs but failing to provide for social needs, is broken.
It isn’t aid that is needed, it is work. If we truly care about those who lack the means of self support then the just thing to do is to make changes in our economic and social systems that enable them to prosper from their own efforts. This not only raises their level of material well being, it raises their level of social well being. It is a resilient, sustainable and humanistic approach to poverty alleviation that recognizes the need for true suffrage – a piece of the franchise, participation, expression of opinion, assent, petition and prayer – the contributions of mind to society that raise the level of social as well as material well being.
The liberal critique of socialism and social democracy is devastating in economic terms but fails to identify the more important failures in social values, ethics, morality and justice. Those who manage to ignore the liberal economic critique may still gain fuller comprehension of the defects of illiberal systems by considering the ethical and social critique. Human beings require and deserve opportunities for self expression that contribute to a sense of belonging and personal worth. They deserve more than a place at the table (or trough, or soup line), they deserve useful work that allows them to express their qualities and gain a measure of recognition and appreciation in society. These basic human needs are as important as food, air and water. It is foolish to organize society in ways that waste the abilities of humans, and cruel to deny them opportunities to satisfy their social needs.
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