Date of Award

2017

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Philosophy

Abstract

HUMAN RIGHTS AND GLOBAL JUSTICE: A NORMATIVE CRITIQUE OF

SOME RAWLSIAN APPROACHES

I hold the position that all forms of social injustice (including global injustice), result

from the intentions and actions of persons. Therefore, irrespective of intervening layers of

causation, such injustice must be understood as intersubjective violations. In this project, I

attempt to develop a global justice theory that takes the level of analysis beyond global

institutions and practices to the level of intersubjective relations between moral agents. My

project opens up the following question: How would a global justice theory look if we took the

expression of human agency as the cause, and restriction of human freedom, as the effect of such

injustice?

In Chapter 1, I redefine social and global injustice as intersubjective domination and

provide an overview of some of the more dominant social and global justice theories. Next, I

analyze the works of two dominant Rawlsian Contaractarian global justice theories, Thomas

Pogge and Richard Miller. In Chapter 2 and 3, I discuss the works of Pogge and Miller

respectively. I argue against both theorists that although they provide strong arguments against

the moral wrong of global poverty because neither of them seeks deeper deontological grounds

for the human right to adequate resources, their prescriptions lack the force of moral law. In

Chapter 4, I put Pogge and Miller in conversation and conclude that because both theories could

accommodate relations of inter-subjective or/and inter-country domination, they do not provide

strong enough arguments for an adequate global justice theory.

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