New book on Thomas Pogge and Poverty

Thomas Pogge and his Critics

ed. by Alison Jaggar

(Polity Press, September 2010)

224 pages




Description

The massive disparity between the relative wealth of most citizens in affluent countries and the profound poverty of billions of people struggling elsewhere for survival is morally jolting. But why exactly is this disparity so outrageous and how should the citizens of affluent countries respond? Political philosopher, Thomas Pogge, has emerged as one of the world’s most ardent critics of global injustice which, he argues, is caused directly by the operation of a global institutional order that not only systematically disadvantages poor countries but is imposed on them by precisely those wealthy, powerful countries that benefit the most from the order’s injustice. In allowing their governments to perpetrate this injustice, Pogge contends that citizens of the wealthy countries collude in a monumental crime against humanity.

In this book Pogge’s challenging and controversial ideas are debated by leading political philosophers from a range of philosophical viewpoints.

Contents

Introduction -Alison M. Jaggar

1. Philosophy, Social Science, Global Poverty -Joshua Cohen
2. Rights, Harm, and Institutions -Kok-Chor Tan
3. How much is enough Mr Thomas? How much will ever be enough? -Neera Chandhoke
4. What Negative Duties? Which Moral Universalism? -Jiwei Ci
5. Non-Egalitarian Global Fairness -Erin I. Kelly & Lionel K. McPherson
6. Realistic Reform of International Trade in Resources - Leif Wenar
7. Realizing (Through Racializing) Pogge - Charles W. Mills
8. Responses to the Critics - Thomas Pogge

Alison Jaggar is Professor at the Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder.

See also my post on Thomas Pogge's new book "Politics as Usual. What Lies Behind The Pro-Poor Rhetoric" (Polity Press, April 2010).