Distant Strangers
Ethics, Psychology, and Global Poverty
Published on 24. October 2013
Book
Hardback
286 pages
978-0-521-76331-8 (ISBN)
Description
What must affluent people do to alleviate global poverty? This question has occupied moral and political philosophers for forty years. But the controversy has reached an impasse: approaches like utilitarianism and libertarianism either demand too much of ordinary mortals or else let them off the hook. In Distant Strangers, Judith Lichtenberg shows how a preoccupation with standard moral theories and with the concepts of duty and obligation have led philosophers astray. She argues that there are serious limits to what can be demanded of ordinary human beings, but this does not mean we must abandon the moral imperative to reduce poverty. Drawing on findings from behavioral economics and psychology, she shows how we can motivate better-off people to lessen poverty without demanding unrealistic levels of moral virtue. Lichtenberg argues convincingly that this approach is not only practically, but morally, appropriate.
Reviews / Votes
'... Lichtenberg is doing the much-neglected and difficult work of integrating theoretical and practical scholarship ... Her work should be embraced as a novel roadmap for the kind of scholarship that global ethics needs - one that is responsive to the practical wisdom of the social sciences ... Distant Strangers is an obvious choice for scholars working in global ethics, and it may generate research ideas for those working at the crossroads of moral philosophy and social psychology.' Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 'Lichtenberg has produced in a fairly short volume an intuitively compelling, empirically informed work on a vitally important topic. It's a book that has meaty conceptual and evaluative claims for philosophers as well as practically useful suggestions for policymakers and a comfortably-off public. It's a wonderful contribution to global justice debates.' Kimberly Brownlee, The Philosophical QuarterlyMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
574 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-76331-8 (9780521763318)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
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E-Book
10/2013
1st Edition
Cambridge University Press
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Book
10/2013
Cambridge University Press
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E-Book
10/2013
Cambridge University Press
€21.99
Available for download
Person
Judith Lichtenberg is Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. She is editor of Democracy and the Mass Media (1990) and co-author of Leveling the Playing Field: Justice, Politics, and College Admissions (with Robert K. Fullinwider, 2004).
Content
1. Introduction; 2. Entanglements and the claims of mere humanity; 3. Duties and rights, charity and justice; 4. 'Negative' and 'positive' duties; 5. Oughts and cans; 6. Why people do what others do - and why that's not so bad; 7. Whose poor?/Who's poor?: Deprivation within and across borders; 8. Hopefully helping: the perils of giving; 9. Motives and morality; 10. Conclusion: morality for mere mortals.