Compensating the global poor: ordinary citizens and liability for global injustice

Abstract

World poverty is a serious moral problem. It has been argued that ordinary citizens of affluent Western states have an obligation to compensate for harming the global poor by supporting an unjust global order. But to be morally liable for harm, one usually has to be morally responsible for it. It is typically thought that at least two conditions need to be satisfied before moral responsibility for harm obtains. The first is that ordinary citizens are causally responsible for that harm. But that claim is beset by a number of conceptual problems. The first part of the thesis addresses these issues and develops a model of contribution. The second condition that needs to be satisfied is an epistemic condition. An agent is not morally responsible for contributing to harm when the agent is non-culpably ignorant of the contribution. I argue that where agents follow the epistemic demands of their society’s ordinary morality, any ignorance that arises is exculpating. In the ordinary moralities of modern Western democratic societies, ordinary citizens are not obligated to consider complex questions of global justice (or so I argue). As a result, if ordinary citizens of affluent Western states are ignorant that the global order is unjust, then insofar as they follow the epistemic requirements of ordinary morality, then although ordinary citizens may contribute to global poverty, they do not bear moral liability for that harm.