Exam 21: Global Economic Justice

While obligatory actions are what duty requires, ________ actions are above and beyond the demands of duty.

The morality of persons getting what is fair or what is their due is known as ________.

Suppose you adopt a libertarian theory of justice. The government decides to raise taxes to pay for universal health care. You will likely oppose these new taxes.

Suppose you are asked by the local hospital to donate one of your kidneys to save the life of a stranger. Most of us would insist that you are not obligated to give away your kidney, even for a good cause, because it's your body, you have a right to it, and you are never obligated to make such a sacrifice. This analogy has been used to cast doubt on one of the premises of Peter Singer's argument that the wealthy have a moral duty to help the needy.

________ theories of justice hold that all persons have equal value and deserve equal respect and therefore have equal rights to the world's resources.

The key premise in Peter Singer's argument for aiding the world's needy is

A person's right that obligates others NOT to interfere with that person's obtaining something is known as a ________.

The failure of rich nations to aid the world's poorest countries would be considered morally wrong by Peter Singer.

Robert Nozick and John Hospers believe that people have a right NOT to be interfered with and to do whatever they want with their own property as long as they do not violate the liberty rights of others. This line is clearly

The moral issue of whether we have a duty to help the poor and hungry of the world is compelling mainly because the

Critics of Peter Singer's view admit that we do have an obligation to aid distant people but, they say, we also have a duty to help

Peter Singer asserts that our moral duty applies to needy people regardless of their distance from us.

A moral obligation to benefit others is known as a duty of ________.

The richest 1 percent of people in the world own about 50 percent of the world's wealth.

Suppose you strongly believe you have no duty to help the poor and hungry of the world and that you are not obligated to share your resources with those less fortunate. Your view would be consistent with

According to Peter Singer's theory, we (the affluent) ought to give to the needy up to the point where we are just better off than those we are trying to help. Singer refers to this as ________.

A ________ right obligates others to help persons obtain something to which they have such a right.

Garrett Hardin uses the lifeboat metaphor to suggest that

A person's claim or entitlement to something, a moral demand that obligates others to act accordingly, is referred to as a duty.

Consider the story of Malawi's transformation from a country that needed emergency food aid to one that feeds its hungry neighbors. The soil in Malawi was overfarmed and depleted, which made it impossible for the country to feed itself. The situation improved only when Malawi began to ignore the advice of the World Bank and rich countries, which, in trying to provide aid, had advised Malawi to get rid of fertilizer subsidies and to rely on the workings of free markets. After the disastrous harvest of 2005, Malawi reversed the trend and subsidized farmers' use of fertilizer, just as many Western countries do for their own farmers. The Malawi government's decision resulted in a complete turnaround of its people's situation. This example would lend most support to the view of ________.