Rethinking remedial responsibilities

• Main Author: Thom Brooks
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2011-09-01
• Series: Ethics & Global Politics
• Subjects: Global justice; nationalism; Miller; identity; distributive justice; severe poverty
• Online Access: http://www.ethicsandglobalpolitics.net/index.php/egp/article/view/7140/11234

How should we determine which nations have a responsibility to remedy suffering elsewhere? The problem is pressing because, following David Miller, ‘[it] is morally intolerable if (remediable) suffering and deprivation are allowed to continue … where they exist we are morally bound to hold somebody (some person or collective agent) responsible for relieving them’. Miller offers a connection theory of remedial responsibilities in response to this problem, a theory he has been developing over the last decade. This theory is meant to serve as a guide on how we can best determine which nations are remedially responsible for alleviating suffering and deprivation elsewhere. Miller's theory entails our following a procedure in order to determine remedial responsibility for nations. The problem is that there is an important flaw in this procedure, a flaw that previous critiques have overlooked. This essay will explain this flaw and how Miller's theory might be reformulated into a two-tiered procedure that would take better account of this problem.