IB Philosophy 4.3.3 Distribution of Wealth Notes

The Ethics of Poverty and Inequality

1. Topic 4.3.1 applied ethical frameworks to biomedical science and topic 4.3.2 examined the moral dimensions of business conduct. This final applied ethics topic addresses one of the most urgent moral questions of the contemporary world: what ethical responsibilities do we have regarding poverty and inequality?
2. The scale of global inequality is staggering, with billions of people lacking access to clean water, adequate nutrition, basic healthcare, and education, while a small fraction of the world's population controls the majority of its wealth.
3. This disparity raises profound philosophical questions about justice, obligation, and the moral significance of the circumstances into which people are born.
4. The normative theories from 4.1 offer competing analyses: deontological approaches ask whether the current distribution of wealth respects the rights and dignity of all persons.
5. If every person has inherent worth as Kant's categorical imperative demands, then a global economic system that condemns billions to preventable suffering may violate a fundamental moral duty, whether of active assistance or merely non-interference.
6. Utilitarian approaches evaluate the distribution of wealth by asking what outcomes produce the greatest overall welfare. A key insight here is diminishing marginal utility: the more money you already have, the less difference an extra dollar makes to your life.

1. Utilitarian reasoning therefore suggests that redistributing wealth from rich to poor would increase total welfare, though this faces objections about individual liberty and incentive structures.
2. Virtue ethics asks what the current distribution of wealth reveals about the character of individuals and societies: Aristotle argued that generosity is a core virtue and that the virtuous person uses wealth to benefit others.
3. A society that tolerates extreme poverty alongside extraordinary luxury may lack the collective virtues of justice and compassion that characterize a flourishing community.

The Scope of Moral Obligation: Universal Principles and Global Duties

1. Unlike biomedical or business ethics, the distribution of wealth concerns humanity as a whole.
2. The philosophical challenge is to determine whether our obligations extend beyond our immediate communities to include strangers on the other side of the world.
3. The question "Are there fundamental moral principles that apply in all situations?" is directly tested by global inequality: if universal moral principles exist, they presumably apply to the relationship between wealthy nations and impoverished ones.
4. If morality is culturally relative (as discussed in 4.2.1), then it is less clear that citizens of wealthy countries have obligations to the global poor.
5. This topic connects to two important cross-references: the concept of social justice will be examined in depth in 7.2.1, where theories of justice (including Rawls's) will be applied to political structures.
6. Martha Nussbaum's capabilities approach (examined in the prescribed text 10.6) provides an alternative framework for thinking about what individuals are owed as a matter of basic human dignity.

Singer's Challenge: Famine, Affluence and Morality

1. Peter Singer's essay Famine, Affluence and Morality (1971), written in response to the Bengal famine of 1971, is one of the most influential and provocative works in applied ethics.
   1. Singer's argument is deceptively simple, but its implications are radical: if we accept its premises, most of us in affluent societies are living in a state of serious moral failure.
2. Singer's central argument rests on a single principle: "If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without giving up anything nearly as morally significant, we ought to do it because of the comparative moral importance."