Philosophy

Thomas Pogge's philosophy on global justice is considered as a radical proposal that makes use of institutional, justice-based arguments from John Rawls and extends it to the global sphere that even Rawls is hesitant to undertake. This proposal of extending justice to the global sphere provides a more comprehensive grasp of the global poverty situation that takes into consideration not only factors at the nation-state level but also international agencies, international agreements, regional assemblies and other international actors. From the political philosophy's perspective, however, Rawls insist that his proposal only asserts a negative duty-based institutional approach. While this is a welcome proposal for many, especially for defenders of a liberal political philosophy, there are also those that have challenged the limitations of his negative duty-based approach as a strategy and as a philosophical response to global poverty. This paper will show that various critiques have misunderstood Pogge's proposal but some have also pushed his theory towards the positive duty-based dimension, which he does not deny but simply avoids as a matter of strategy. The argument here is that Pogge's global justice approach cannot escape the demand for positive duty especially as a demand of justice from citizens of affluent countries, and this is a very significant though underdeveloped aspect of his theory.

One of the dominant areas of discourse that attempts to respond to the environmental problem that beset this generation is referred to as ecological democracy. This was popularized by the political theorist, John Dryzek. The strategy attempts to address structural challenges in dealing with the environmental challenges. While this is a welcome development, environmental philosophy should not move away from the discourse on the value of human existence and its relation with the broader environmental reality. This fundamental understanding of human existence is elaborately discussed by Martin Heidegger in his notion of dwelling. I will contend in his paper that this notion of dwelling can serve as important precondition of any attempt to understand the notion of ecological democracy.