National responsibility and global justice

This chapter addresses the questions: what responsibilities do we have towards the global poor? What must we do for them as a matter of justice? It considers the arguments of Peter Singer and Thomas Pogge that responsibility for global poverty falls straightforwardly on the citizens of rich, developed societies. Against Peter Singer, it is argued that it makes no sense to assign remedial responsibility for poverty to citizens of rich states without first considering the question of outcome responsibility — how and why poverty has arisen. Against Thomas Pogge, it is argued that his attempt to assign outcome responsibility for poverty to the international order, and through that to citizens of rich states and their governments, is implausible. It is shown that remedial responsibilities to the world's poor are not straightforward, but must take into account a variety of factors, primarily having to do with attributions of outcome responsibility for the poverty we witness.