2,999 words
May 25th 2023
Introduction
The subject of this paper, namely, “What limits (if any) are there on the obligations of justice (if any) of citizens who are part of the global rich, to the global poor?”, is a two-part question. I will answer both questions utilizing the following key points:
- There are many limitations that exist with regards to obligations from the global rich to the global poor. They range from practicality, rationalization/justification, and unintended consequences, to the limits of human psychology. Many of these reasons have been explained and defended by others, and I will summarize some of their points here, but the main limitation I will focus on and make a case for is based around human psychology and the origins of our feelings of justice and what they mean. I will also consider some historical ways these limitations have been pushed and potential ways to continue to push against the constraints of these limitations in the future.
- I will then briefly discuss what obligations are with regards to justice, how they are shaped by game theory and evolutionary altruism, and why this forms a foundation which then helps make a case for us having said obligations on a global scale, as it is in our best interest to attempt to enlarge our sense of justice to incorporate a larger swath of humanity due to the increasing interconnectivity of the actions of one set of people’s on another, especially with regards to so called hyperobjects.
I will expound upon these points by first summarizing and explaining some of the key arguments made previously on limitations to our obligations which I think are relevant and make a strong case. I will then lay down my own arguments for the human psychology limitation on the enlargement of justice as a concept to encompass more groups globally. Next, I will discuss why, despite these limitations we are in fact obligated to attempt to enlarge our feelings of justice in this way merely for the sake of our own self-preservation. This will lead to a brief discussion of game theory and the evolutionary origins of altruism and how this is not a departure from traditional ethical obligations but is merely these same obligations writ large in continuation of a process already in motion. Finally, I will discuss some of the hyperobjects that provide examples of the types of situations that illustrate why expanding our sense of justice to include people all around the globe is in our own self-interest to promote.
Limitations
I will begin with Thomas Pogge as I feel, while I do not agree with him fully, he builds a decent foundation for obligations and limitations from which to begin discussion. As opposed to someone like Singer, who espoused positive ethical duties to the global poor, Pogge bases his obligations of justice on three tenets which build on negative duties. First being consequentialism, which in his sense is the idea that well off countries have become such through direct exploitation of other countries, and thus through it can be argued that we “owe” reparations to fulfil justice in that regard. Second, based on the ideas of John Locke, Pogge argues there is a moral obligation among people to share resources enough that we do not hoard more than we need, but ensure we leave enough for others to be able to live as well. Finally, Pogge appeals to Contractualism, in an extension of argument 1 regarding consequentialism, saying that since we have directly created these negative consequences for poorer countries, we have essentially broken a contract to them and owe them restitution. Taking this foundation as a starting point, I think it is not difficult to accept Pogge’s assessment of the current situation and some of the factors that have propagated inequality. It is not even a stretch to accept that moving forward we should prevent harm of the type done historically when exploiting developing countries in order for our actions to be just, but does there then exist a justice-based justification for reparations? Probably not. The biggest limitation to consider is pragmatics. What will help as opposed to merely appeasing conscience. Also, what sorts of unintended side effects are there for any potential types of aid? Socioeconimic and geopolitical forces are multifaceted and interconnected in a way that is not easily parsed with regards to second and third order effects. A. We have very little power to change that as individuals. B. We aren’t the primary recipients of that wealth as individual citizens of our nations, and C. Making the leap from that to owing reparations for past policies of our government for which A. and B. still apply is a big jump. In this I mostly agree with Satz’s critical article, although I do not agree with her conclusion or ecumenical strategy since I am equally skeptical of the positive duties as they are often described. There is some merit to Rawls’ attempt. The veil of ignorance is a very good thought experiment, although there are serious issues with the credibility of deontological justifications. I think a system of support as he describes, like the Scandinavian social system, sounds agreeable to my natural moral sentiments (moral sentiments being important to the point I will be making in the next section). I think his idea of justice as fairness is somewhat in line with the case I will build in the next section, which is basically that I think ideas of justice stem from an unconscious emotional logic that supersedes ideological or religious systems and was ingrained within us through natural selection. I think our emotions more generally are a manifestation of evolutionary logic which shortcut rational decision making. Thus, all the above attempts at creating logical systems to answer ethical questions fall short or miss the mark for describing the actual forces at play. Although they are not useless, as I will explain in a later section, we are attempting to recreate, in very limited form, an algorithm that is already running very well within us and is not so black and white or simplistic as the logical systems we attempt to create in its image. This is specifically due to computational limitations for complex questions. This is similar to how in computer science we run into issues like the traveling salesman or the halting problems. That is not to say that nature has everything correct, and again we will look in a later section at some of the limitations and potential ways to overcome issues with this, especially with regards to hyperobjects, but for now though, let’s consider what our obligations of justice are and what the limitations would be under this unconscious algorithmic system I propose.
Justice and Psychology
Where does our concept of justice come from? I think there is a strong case for an evolutionary basis for our feelings of justice as well as ethics more broadly. This theory has its’ foundation in the work of Richard Dawkins with The Selfish Gene. At its’ most basic, the replication of the gene drives human behaviors. Genes are shared among families and populations which leads to the cooperative advantage of groups for gene propagation. To build further upon this, game theory shows how even unrelated groups of people benefit from cooperation with examples such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma. This does not show a black-and-white rule system for behavior in all situations, but a dependent rule system based on the behavior of others where, much like a game of rock, paper, scissors, the best strategy depends on what your opponent does. This makes for a very complex mix of factors that must be considered when deciding on a proper action. Much of this complex algorithm is done unconsciously in humans and is a product of evolution. It manifests as emotional responses toward needs or drives. This is further supported by the book The Hidden Spring by Mark Solms where he argues from a neuroscientific perspective how emotion is the foundation of consciousness. He shows where consciousness arises physically in the brain and how it finds its origins in emotion. We often tend to look down upon emotion, but emotion is an expression of complex reasoning algorithms that dictate behavior. This is further elaborated on with the Moral Foundations Theory championed by Johnathan Haidt. With this theory, the biological, emotion-based foundations of our moral judgments are exposed. Haidt shows how asking simple questions about disgust or other feelings can be an accurate predictor of political affiliation. This is one example of how the foundations of our supposedly rational decision making with regards to something like immigration legislation, are more closely related to our emotions regarding disgust or in-group loyalty than they are to whatever empirical arguments we choose to employ to justify our feelings to others. Haidt also goes on to show how his moral foundation categories find their basis in evolutionary advantages. To further support this overall picture, we can look at computer science. In the book, Algorithms to Live By: the computer science of human decisions, the authors give many examples of the inherent reasoning power of our decision making and its parallels to computer science. The key takeaway here for our purposes being, if you try to create a computer program to answer something like The Traveling Salesman Problem, or P vs, NP, you run into issues with limitations of the computer system itself and/or polynomial time vs exponential time. I won’t elaborate on the details here but if you want to know more I highly recommend The Outer Limits of Reason by Yanofsky where he discusses the different types of problems in computer science and why some are unsolvable. For our purposes, the main take away from this book is that there are times when the most accurate solution to a given problem is impossible given physical limitations or time constraints, and in computer science (and I argue in our brains as well) taking shortcuts is actually the more useful option. The parallel to this in our current discussion being, making a system of ethics based on rational rules is often impractical or physically impossible. Creating a deontological or consequentialist theory, or any sort of rational theory, will often fall short. In fact, I would venture to argue that we create or subscribe to those systems based on our own psychology and predispositions more than the other way around. Often the best reasoning ability we have is built into our emotional reactions through the unconscious algorithm put there through natural selection. This algorithm works in our own self-interest but is also altruistic. This is not to say it is perfect or the best possible iteration. I will not argue for the naturalistic fallacy. I do think there are limitations and that we have the means to make improvements. This results in a version of Emotivism but within evolutionary constraints. Or a type of Intuitionism but again with an evolutionary basis. And while I doubt he would agree, I believe Hume’s quote fits nicely here, “Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions”.
So far, I have described what justice is and how it came about, but as I said this is not necessarily the best possible algorithm for our current world. So, what are the limits toward further broadening our feelings of justice and our obligations to a more global level, and are we even obligated to do so?
Limits and Obligations
Humans evolved in a very different environment than the highly interconnected, global one we live in today. The process of moving from small bands or communities into huge nations of people has required changes and many systems have been created to overcome associated problems. Ideas of nationalism, which can play on or exploit fear and ethnocentrism (based in shared genetics), can be one way of attempting to stretch or broaden our circle of altruism to a larger, less connected, group of people. Shared nationality, religious affiliation, or even subscribing to a system of justice, law, and/or financial systems have also been means of broadening our circles. Even if we can’t know a person to build a feeling of trust, if we subscribe to the same legal system to hold each other accountable and trade in currency backed by the state we can still trade and coexist without personal trust. In ancient China, Confucius came up with a system to help with this same issue as well. He envisioned broadening circles of obligation moving from filial piety up to loyalty to the nation to broaden individual ideas of justice and ethics to a larger society. (Wong. 2021) But obviously even in today’s world there are still issues with factionalism and civil war so we have not solved the problem completely, but we have found both helpful and harmful means of chipping away at it and significantly broadening these circles from where they were previously.
I think philosophy and the study of ethics itself are attempts to enlarge these circles. Reasonings like those we covered in this course such as Scheffler’s can have an impact on the global consciousness or at least help push the narrative in the collective consciousness in the direction of global justice, but of course, within biological constraints. Even though I don’t personally agree with Scheffler, I think the conversation itself, although not actually discovering any capital “T” Truth, is what’s important. I agree with Deleuze and Guattari on the definition of philosophy itself being concept creation, and memetics can have a very powerful impact on culture and behavior. Luckily our behaviors are not set in stone, within a generation we have neuroplasticity and environmentally dependent gene expression, and over longer time frames we have the force of evolution itself which can change how we feel and act regarding ethics and fairness at this larger global scale which will be necessary for our survival in the more interconnected world we live in.
The so-called obligation is not so much an obligation as self-preservation. If we fail to do enough, we don’t fail morally, we fail as a species to continue successfully, and only time will show the outcome of our wager. Communitarian Michael Walzer has a good self-serving explanation for why we should help our neighbors in a nation state with his illustrative narrative about national unity being undermined when the neighbor of one with a dying child builds a new pool instead of helping save the child. Basically, if I can’t trust you to help me and my family, why should I pay my taxes or send my children to war to fight on behalf of our collective interests? This is obviously meant to apply within a community or nation, and the difficult task is then broadening the same type of reasoning to encompass the global community. I think his more descriptive style of discussing how we decide societally which things all peoples are entitled to, which does not on its own include wealth redistribution just the separation of that accrual of wealth from access to other things such as healthcare, and how it changes over time to be fairly accurate. Regarding issues like climate, access to water, or nuclear weapons, it can be easy to see how this metaphor could encompass the global community and not just within a nation. Some of the best examples of justification for enlarging our circle of justice are hyperobjects.
Hyperobjects
What are Hyperobjects and how do they justify an obligation to global justice based on self-preservation? According to philosopher Timothy Morton, hyperobjects are massive entities that transcend localization in time and space and have wide ranging effects. (Morton. 2013) Some examples he gives of hyperobjects are global warming, nuclear devices, and things like Styrofoam that do not break down for extremely long periods of time. Due to their characteristics, hyperobjects exist in a higher dimension than what we are used to perceiving and are thus very difficult for us to comprehend and address. Basically, hyperobjects fall outside of our evolutionary based algorithms for action because we have not historically had the global impact we have now. Its similar to how we have no means of sensing carbon monoxide, it was not as historically beneficial and thus we never had an evolutionary pressure to evolve a sense for it. This can now prove deadly in a world where we create CO as a byproduct of so much of our energy usage. In the same way, evolution has no mechanism for dealing with ideas of justice and ethics on a global scale in a world where inequality, war, famine, political turmoil, etc., on the other side of the world could lead to the employment of hyperobjects such as nuclear weapons which put us all at risk. The issue then becomes pragmatically how do we help the global poor effectively. What can we do as individuals? Maybe it is more effectively managed as nations through taxation and policy? These are now empirical questions, difficult ones, but they have answers.
Conclusion
In summary, the answer to the questions posed at the beginning of this essay are:
- Yes, there are many limitations on the obligations of justice from the global rich to the global poor. The main ones focused on in this essay have been those stemming from psychology and the foundations and evolutionary purpose of feelings of justice as well as pragmatic, empirical limitations.
- There are in fact obligations, these stem from self-preservation with the backing of game theory on a global level to combat hyperobjects.
In conclusion, I believe we must make the attempt to enlarge our circles of justice and obligation to a more global scale at the very least because hyperobjects can impact our own survival. Feelings like justice and altruism serve a purpose and are not static. We have some means at our disposal to work towards this goal, although we are limited and at a certain point we must wait for biology to catch up.
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