Ali Shammary

Ali Shammary (PhD in Philosophy), Absolute Poverty and Human Rights: An Examination of Factual and Normative Issues surrounding Absolute World Poverty

In this thesis, I aim to explore factual and normative questions surrounding the problem of world poverty. I begin by asking the following questions: What is absolute poverty? What is the extent of absolute poverty? And what are the kinds of causes responsible for generating and sustaining poverty in the world? I define absolute poverty as material deprivation such that the individual lacks adequate access to the means of survival.

These include lack of adequate drinking water, food, clothing, access to essential medical assistance, and shelter (adequate housing, in modern societies). In recent times, it has been popular among scholars to claim (1) that there is a negative duty not to benefit from injustice, and (2) that this can be the basis of claiming that since the people and governments in western countries are harming the poor in some way, that therefore they must stop doing what is causing such harm and remedy the situation. The claim then consists of a theoretical question; that is, whether or not there is such a general duty of the kind that is claimed to exist; and the empirical claim that in fact the people and governments in western countries are implicated in harms that the world’s poor suffer from.

Therefore, in Chapters 2 to 3 I ask whether or not there is a general moral duty not to benefit from an injustice done by others. I argue that there is no such duty. But there is a duty not to harm others, which can give rise to a demand not to benefit from injustice on particular occasions, should other conditions also be met, which conditions I highlight in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is related to the negative thesis (denial of the claim presented that such a duty exists) of Chapter 2, but also points out that claims of compensation for historical wrongs committed against peoples who may be appropriately linked to current victims is unlikely to be supported by sufficient evidence.

Chapter 4 takes a look at relative poverty, or poverty relative to national standards, and draws on Rawlsian theory of primary social goods to argue that due to the nature of the work that many poor people are compelled (by lack of options) to do, they are greatly disadvantaged from gaining adequate amounts of essential goods such as self-respect, at least from their work, which is an important source of self-esteem in many people’s lives. In relation to the overall thesis, I point out that due to the role money plays in many societies in the world, that the link between possessing wealth and income of a certain degree has great impact on people’s self-esteem and also on their social status.

In Chapter 5, I present a case for the existence of a positive human right to be free from absolute poverty, which entails secure access to minimal material provisions. There I contrast different conceptions of human rights (Pogge’s institutionalist conception, Joseph Raz’s functionalist account, and James Griffin’s personhood account) and argue that using Rawls’s idea of reflective equilibrium we can reach a more or less coherent set of human rights one of which includes the right to be free from poverty of the kind that afflicts about half the world’s population. In Chapter 5, I explore the institutionalist account by Pogge and point out some ways that institutions can be said to play an important role in realising human rights for all.

Chapter 6 considers the impact of some global institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF …) on exacerbating the condition of the poor. I also argue that understanding the story of how poverty has decreased over time requires our taking into account non-global developments such as China’s efforts in the twentieth century to urbanise and reduce poverty in their country, but also reduction of poverty in parts of Southeast Asia which were accelerated by their joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) but which also had non-global components and preceded the creation of the WTO.

I examine a thesis advanced by Thomas Pogge called the Feasible Alternative Thesis (FAT …) and argue that for our global institutions to be just, we must ensure that the only human rights deficits that exist are those which fall outside the control of our institutions and which thus cannot be either reasonably avoided or foreseen (or both). This implies that our global institutions, such as the World Bank, and World Trade Organisation are unjust and harmful to the poor if they allow human rights deficits (e.g., lack of adequate material goods for people on whom this global order is imposed) to occur which these institutions could foresee and reasonably prevent. Let us begin with settling some factual questions concerning the nature of poverty and the kinds of causes which generate it (Chapter 1) before taking a look at some related normative questions in Chapter 2.

Supervisors: Dr Andrew Alexandra, Associate Professor Holly Lawford Smith