Thomas Pogge
Encyclopedia
Thomas Winfried Menko Pogge (born 1953) is a German philosopher and is currently the Director of the Global Justice Program and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University. In addition to his Yale appointment, he is the Research Director of the Centre for the Study of the Mind in Nature at the University of Oslo, a Professorial Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University and Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Central Lancashire's Centre for Professional Ethics. Pogge is also an editor for social and political philosophy for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
.
Pogge received his Ph.D. from Harvard University with a dissertation supervised by John Rawls
. Since then he has published widely on Kant
and in moral and political philosophy, including various books on John Rawls and global justice
.
(HIF). The HIF is a new proposal for stimulating research and development
of life-saving pharmaceuticals that make substantial reductions in the global burden of disease
.
The HIF will provide pharmaceutical companies with a new choice. Pharmaceutical companies can sell a new medicine in the usual manner at patent
-protected high prices, or they can choose to register their new medicine with the HIF and sell it globally at the cost of production. If they choose to register their medicine with the HIF, the pharmaceutical company will receive additional payments from the fund that are proportionate to health improvements that are brought about by the registered medicines. The more effective the medicine is in improving global health, the bigger the payout. Because malaria kills millions, the firm that finds and develops a cure can expect a significant return.
is one of the most prominent and controversial books in contemporary political philosophy. It includes a number of original and substantial theses, the most (in)famous of which is that people in wealthy Western liberal democracies (such as Western Europeans) are currently harming the world’s poor (like those in sub-Saharan Africa). In particular, without denying that much blame should be directed at domestic kleptocrats, Pogge urges us to recognize the ways in which international institutions facilitate and exacerbate the corruption perpetuated by national institutions. Pogge is especially critical of the “resource” and “borrowing” privileges, which allow illegitimate political leaders to sell natural resources and to borrow money in the name of the country and its people. In Pogge’s analysis, these resource and borrowing privileges that international society extends to oppressive rulers of impoverished states play a crucial causal role in perpetuating absolute poverty. What is more, Pogge maintains that these privileges are no accident; they persist because they are in the interest of the wealthy states. The resource privilege helps guarantee a reliable supply of raw materials for the goods enjoyed by the members of wealthy states, and the borrowing privilege allows the financial institutions of wealthy states to issue lucrative loans. It may seem that such loans are good for developing states too, but Pogge argues that, in practice, they typically work quite to the contrary:
Local elites can afford to be oppressive and corrupt, because, with foreign loans and military aid, they can stay in power even without popular support. And they are often so oppressive and corrupt, because it is, in light of the prevailing extreme international inequalities, far more lucrative for them to cater to the interests of foreign governments and firms than to those of their impoverished compatriots.
Thus, without denying that local leaders are often guilty of the most egregious crimes, Pogge’s analysis of the international institutions shows how the world’s poor are not merely suffering because we are doing too little to help; they are being actively and wrongly harmed by a system of global political and economic arrangements that is disproportionately shaped by and for wealthy Western societies.
If Pogge is correct, then the typical contemporary American is morally tantamount to an average law-abiding white person in the antebellum South who, while she may not have personally owned slaves, indirectly contributed to the upholding of slavery and profited from the cheap goods made available by this horribly unjust institution. What is more, if Pogge is right about the need to focus on pernicious institutions rather than (solely) our individual interactions, then it is hard not to feel impotent. After all, even if you and I worked around the clock, what chance is there that either of us could discernibly improve the existing geo-political landscape? It is important to appreciate, though, that Pogge’s institutional approach is not nearly as demanding as one might initially think. It does not require us to disassociate from all institutions that harm others, nor does it even require us to fix the harmful institutions to which we contribute. More minimally, it requires only that so long as we contribute to the design or imposition of unjust institutions, we compensate for our fair share of the avoidable deprivations they produce and make reasonable efforts toward institutional reform. Meeting the first of these requirements allows an average citizen in Nazi Germany, who chose to remain there and contribute to the state’s economy, to escape wrongdoing by doing enough toward protecting the victims of the Nazi state (Oscar Schindler). In contrast to the Nazi case, where few even among the privileged elite had any plausible opportunities to support institutional reform, such opportunities abound for the affluent participants in today’s world economy, or so Pogge believes.
. Pogge insists that Rawls has been importantly misunderstood by his most influential critics, including the libertarian Robert Nozick
and the communitarian Michael Sandel
. According to Pogge, Rawls’s reluctance to disagree sharply with his critics has helped these (mis)understandings to become widespread, and has also induced Rawls in his more recent work to dilute the moral statement of his central Rawlsian ideas: first, that moral deliberation must begin from reflection upon the justice of our basic social institutions; and second, that the justice of an institutional scheme is to be assessed by how well its least advantaged participants fare. From these starting points, Pogge develops his own specification of Rawls’s principles of justice, discussing the relative importance of different fundamental rights and liberties, the ideal constitution of the political process, and the just organization of educational, health-care, and economic institutions. In the last part of the book, Pogge argues for extending the Rawlsian criterion of justice to the international arena, and identifies those features of the present global order that this criterion would single out as principal targets for institutional reform.
is an international society for the promotion of poverty relief, in particular in the developing world. The aims of the organisation are to encourage people to commit to long-term donation to those charities that provide the most cost-effective poverty relief. Giving What We Can conducts extensive research into the relative effectiveness of charities, and provides a list of those it most highly recommends. Currently this includes charities that work to treat neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)
, tuberculosis
, and malaria
.
This project is still in its beginning stages. It has three central aims: (1) To disseminate accessible versions of arguments for taking action against world poverty to the public; (2) To disseminate responses to standard objections to such arguments to the public; (3) To distribute discussion of what individuals and states in developing countries should do in response to world poverty to the public.
Human and Gender‐Related Development Indices, and the World's Bank’s
Poverty Index - are used to track poverty, development, and gender equity at the population level. Pogge argues that these prominent indices are deeply flawed and therefore distort our moral judgments and misguide resource allocations by governments, international agencies, and NGOs.
“This project will work toward new indices ‘of poverty and of gender equity’ applicable both at the national and supranational levels, and to smaller groups affected by specific policies and programs. Both indices will draw on a holistic measure of individual (dis)advantage that reflects all relevant aspects of a person’s situation.”
Pogge has pursued similar themes in his recent book Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric (Cambridge: Polity Press).
out of developing countries, the lack of transparency in the global financial system, and the impact these conditions have on human rights. The driving idea behind this project is that “‘human rights and international financial integrity are intimately linked’” and that poverty increases when money flows out of nations illicitly instead of being invested in the basic needs of people in their countries.”
UNU Lecture Series ‘Emerging Thinking on Global Issues (II)’: Human Rights: The Second 60 Years, and interview, December 11, 2008, at http://www.ony.unu.edu/events-forums/new/ET/2008/unu-lecture-series-emerging-th.php.
Pogge’s home page: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~tp4/index.html
Public Ethics Radio: http://publicethicsradio.org/ http://publicethicsradio.org/
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway.-History:The University of Oslo was established in 1811. The idea of a learned society in Christiania surfaced for the first time in 1841. The city of Throndhjem had no university, but had a learned...
.
Pogge received his Ph.D. from Harvard University with a dissertation supervised by John Rawls
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....
. Since then he has published widely on Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
and in moral and political philosophy, including various books on John Rawls and global justice
Global justice
Global justice is an issue in political philosophy arising from the concern that the world at large is unjust.-Context:The broader philosophical context of the global justice debate, in both its contemporary and historical forms, is the issue of impartiality...
.
The Health Impact Fund: Making New Medicines Accessible for All
In this book, Thomas Pogge and Aidan Hollis argue in favour of establishing the Health Impact FundHealth Impact Fund
The Health Impact Fund is a proposed mechanism that would provide a market-based solution to problems concerning the development and distribution of medicines. It would incentivize the research and development of new pharmaceutical products that make substantial reductions in the global burden of...
(HIF). The HIF is a new proposal for stimulating research and development
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
of life-saving pharmaceuticals that make substantial reductions in the global burden of disease
Global health
Global health is the health of populations in a global context and transcends the perspectives and concerns of individual nations. Health problems that transcend national borders or have a global political and economic impact, are often emphasized...
.
The HIF will provide pharmaceutical companies with a new choice. Pharmaceutical companies can sell a new medicine in the usual manner at patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
-protected high prices, or they can choose to register their new medicine with the HIF and sell it globally at the cost of production. If they choose to register their medicine with the HIF, the pharmaceutical company will receive additional payments from the fund that are proportionate to health improvements that are brought about by the registered medicines. The more effective the medicine is in improving global health, the bigger the payout. Because malaria kills millions, the firm that finds and develops a cure can expect a significant return.
World Poverty and Human Rights
Pogge’s World Poverty and Human RightsWorld Poverty and Human Rights
World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms is a 2002 book by Thomas Pogge. In the book, Pogge explains that the poorest 46 percent of humankind have 1.2 percent of global income and their purchasing power per person per day is less than that of $2.15 in the US in...
is one of the most prominent and controversial books in contemporary political philosophy. It includes a number of original and substantial theses, the most (in)famous of which is that people in wealthy Western liberal democracies (such as Western Europeans) are currently harming the world’s poor (like those in sub-Saharan Africa). In particular, without denying that much blame should be directed at domestic kleptocrats, Pogge urges us to recognize the ways in which international institutions facilitate and exacerbate the corruption perpetuated by national institutions. Pogge is especially critical of the “resource” and “borrowing” privileges, which allow illegitimate political leaders to sell natural resources and to borrow money in the name of the country and its people. In Pogge’s analysis, these resource and borrowing privileges that international society extends to oppressive rulers of impoverished states play a crucial causal role in perpetuating absolute poverty. What is more, Pogge maintains that these privileges are no accident; they persist because they are in the interest of the wealthy states. The resource privilege helps guarantee a reliable supply of raw materials for the goods enjoyed by the members of wealthy states, and the borrowing privilege allows the financial institutions of wealthy states to issue lucrative loans. It may seem that such loans are good for developing states too, but Pogge argues that, in practice, they typically work quite to the contrary:
Local elites can afford to be oppressive and corrupt, because, with foreign loans and military aid, they can stay in power even without popular support. And they are often so oppressive and corrupt, because it is, in light of the prevailing extreme international inequalities, far more lucrative for them to cater to the interests of foreign governments and firms than to those of their impoverished compatriots.
Thus, without denying that local leaders are often guilty of the most egregious crimes, Pogge’s analysis of the international institutions shows how the world’s poor are not merely suffering because we are doing too little to help; they are being actively and wrongly harmed by a system of global political and economic arrangements that is disproportionately shaped by and for wealthy Western societies.
If Pogge is correct, then the typical contemporary American is morally tantamount to an average law-abiding white person in the antebellum South who, while she may not have personally owned slaves, indirectly contributed to the upholding of slavery and profited from the cheap goods made available by this horribly unjust institution. What is more, if Pogge is right about the need to focus on pernicious institutions rather than (solely) our individual interactions, then it is hard not to feel impotent. After all, even if you and I worked around the clock, what chance is there that either of us could discernibly improve the existing geo-political landscape? It is important to appreciate, though, that Pogge’s institutional approach is not nearly as demanding as one might initially think. It does not require us to disassociate from all institutions that harm others, nor does it even require us to fix the harmful institutions to which we contribute. More minimally, it requires only that so long as we contribute to the design or imposition of unjust institutions, we compensate for our fair share of the avoidable deprivations they produce and make reasonable efforts toward institutional reform. Meeting the first of these requirements allows an average citizen in Nazi Germany, who chose to remain there and contribute to the state’s economy, to escape wrongdoing by doing enough toward protecting the victims of the Nazi state (Oscar Schindler). In contrast to the Nazi case, where few even among the privileged elite had any plausible opportunities to support institutional reform, such opportunities abound for the affluent participants in today’s world economy, or so Pogge believes.
Realizing Rawls
In Realizing Rawls, Pogge defends, criticizes and extends John Rawls’s A Theory of JusticeA Theory of Justice
A Theory of Justice is a book of political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls. It was originally published in 1971 and revised in both 1975 and 1999. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice by utilising a variant of the familiar device of the social...
. Pogge insists that Rawls has been importantly misunderstood by his most influential critics, including the libertarian Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick
Robert Nozick was an American political philosopher, most prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia , a right-libertarian answer to John Rawls's A Theory of Justice...
and the communitarian Michael Sandel
Michael Sandel
Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for the Harvard course 'Justice' which is available to , and for his critique of Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his Liberalism and the Limits of Justice...
. According to Pogge, Rawls’s reluctance to disagree sharply with his critics has helped these (mis)understandings to become widespread, and has also induced Rawls in his more recent work to dilute the moral statement of his central Rawlsian ideas: first, that moral deliberation must begin from reflection upon the justice of our basic social institutions; and second, that the justice of an institutional scheme is to be assessed by how well its least advantaged participants fare. From these starting points, Pogge develops his own specification of Rawls’s principles of justice, discussing the relative importance of different fundamental rights and liberties, the ideal constitution of the political process, and the just organization of educational, health-care, and economic institutions. In the last part of the book, Pogge argues for extending the Rawlsian criterion of justice to the international arena, and identifies those features of the present global order that this criterion would single out as principal targets for institutional reform.
Giving What We Can
Giving What We CanGiving What We Can
Giving What We Can is an international society for the promotion of poverty relief, in particular in the developing world.Founded by moral philosopher Dr Toby Ord in November 2009, Giving What We Can is not a charity itself: the aims of the organisation are instead to encourage people to commit to...
is an international society for the promotion of poverty relief, in particular in the developing world. The aims of the organisation are to encourage people to commit to long-term donation to those charities that provide the most cost-effective poverty relief. Giving What We Can conducts extensive research into the relative effectiveness of charities, and provides a list of those it most highly recommends. Currently this includes charities that work to treat neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)
Neglected Diseases
The neglected diseases are a group of tropical infections which are especially endemic in low-income populations in developing regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Different organizations define the set of diseases differently...
, tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, and malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
.
Incentives for Global Health (IGH)
The IGH is a non-profit organization dedicated to developing market-based, systemic solutions to health challenges faced by the world’s poor. Its flagship proposal is the HIF.Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP)
ASAP, is an organization meant to help academics have a greater impact on world poverty. “The group lies between academia and activism. Like the latter, it aims primarily at persuading and motivating people to change their behavior. Like the former, it does so by moral and political argument, using the distinctive skills of academics.”This project is still in its beginning stages. It has three central aims: (1) To disseminate accessible versions of arguments for taking action against world poverty to the public; (2) To disseminate responses to standard objections to such arguments to the public; (3) To distribute discussion of what individuals and states in developing countries should do in response to world poverty to the public.
Poverty and Gender Equality Measurement
Various indices - the UNDP'sUnited Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...
Human and Gender‐Related Development Indices, and the World's Bank’s
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
Poverty Index - are used to track poverty, development, and gender equity at the population level. Pogge argues that these prominent indices are deeply flawed and therefore distort our moral judgments and misguide resource allocations by governments, international agencies, and NGOs.
“This project will work toward new indices ‘of poverty and of gender equity’ applicable both at the national and supranational levels, and to smaller groups affected by specific policies and programs. Both indices will draw on a holistic measure of individual (dis)advantage that reflects all relevant aspects of a person’s situation.”
Pogge has pursued similar themes in his recent book Politics as Usual: What Lies Behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Illicit Financial Flows
This project focuses on the illicit financial flowsIllicit financial flows
Illicit financial flows, in economics, refers to a form of illegal capital flight and occurs when money is illegally earned, transferred, or utilized. This money is intended to disappear from any record in the country of origin, and earnings on the stock of illicit financial flows outside of a...
out of developing countries, the lack of transparency in the global financial system, and the impact these conditions have on human rights. The driving idea behind this project is that “‘human rights and international financial integrity are intimately linked’” and that poverty increases when money flows out of nations illicitly instead of being invested in the basic needs of people in their countries.”
Forced Labor and Human Trafficking
The Forced Labor and Human Trafficking project aims “to bring public, official, and mainstream media attention to the global crisis of human trafficking and labor abuse towards children and adults.” The non-profit organization Art Works Projects is a contributor to this project.Video
'Globalization, Rights and Poverty,' Considered at Center for the Study of Human Rights 25th Anniversary Conference”, October 23, 2003 at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/vforum/03/globalization_rights_poverty/thomasPogge.ramUNU Lecture Series ‘Emerging Thinking on Global Issues (II)’: Human Rights: The Second 60 Years, and interview, December 11, 2008, at http://www.ony.unu.edu/events-forums/new/ET/2008/unu-lecture-series-emerging-th.php.
Audio
KUOW 94.9 FM Weekday: Thomas Pogge on Poverty and Global Justice, April 17, 2009, at http://www.kuow.org/program.php?id=17344External links
Global Justice Program: http://www.yale.edu/macmillan/globaljustice/index.htmlPogge’s home page: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~tp4/index.html
Public Ethics Radio: http://publicethicsradio.org/ http://publicethicsradio.org/