PHIL 5760: GLOBAL JUSTICE, HEALTH, AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Prof. John D. Arras
Fall 2010
COURSE SYNOPSIS:
This seminar is motivated by a desire to expand the horizons of bioethics to include a set of important issues on the international front—including the limits of human rights-inspired interventions into the health-related practices of other states (e.g., clitoridectomy, HIV-AIDS in South Africa, the work of Doctors Without Borders, etc.); access to life-sustaining medications for the poor in distant lands; pharmaceuticals’ claims to patent protection and intellectual property versus the claims of public health in time of plague; and the ethical conduct of biomedical research in developing countries.
In order to get a proper handle on these questions, we will need to read a whole lot of political philosophy bearing on some fundamental issues: viz., the rationale and boundaries of political toleration; the implications of multiculturalism for traditional liberal appeals to human rights; humanitarian and justice-based arguments for assistance to the “distant needy”; current philosophical perspectives on the objectives and measures of human development; and the role of human rights language as a species of ethical discourse in the international domain. With this literature under our belts, we will finish up the seminar by bringing the insights gleaned from this theoretical survey to bear on the case studies with which we began. The major focal point of the seminar will be a prolonged and careful examination and assessment of John Rawls’ last work, The Law of Peoples, and the responses of his critics from the libertarian right and the cosmopolitan left.
OFFICE HOURS: Regular office hours will be held in Room 524 in Cabell Hall from 11-12 on Tuesday and from 3-5 PM on Thursday. Alternative hours available by appointment. Drop-ins are usually welcome. Office phone: 924-7863; home phone: 970-1712.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
Students are required to attend seminar sessions on a regular basis and to come fully prepared to participate in discussion of the assigned texts. There will be no examinations, but each student will submit a substantial amount of writing. Graduate students will be expected to produce roughly 20-30 pages. They can choose to submit two relatively short papers or one long paper. Undergraduates will be expected to submit one paper of roughly 20 pages. Time permitting, each seminar member will deliver a class presentation based upon his or her research during the semester; everyone will also be expected to present brief expositions and analyses of several texts throughout the course of the semester. Everyone will be charged with writing short weekly email responses to the reading assignment. You will be graded mostly on the basis of the quality of your written work, but class participation will also be an important factor.
TOPICS FOR RESEARCH:
Given the breadth of topics discussed in this course and the mix of students enrolled, I suspect that different students will be taking this seminar for different reasons. Grad students in philosophy and religious studies may well be primarily interested in the political philosophy “straight up,” while the bioethics & public health MA students and undergrads may be primarily interested in the practical “bioethical” policy issues that originally motivated this seminar (or vice versa). Consequently, students should feel free to follow their own interests in their writing.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
(Books available at UVA bookstore)
Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton UP pb, 1999)
Deen Chatterjee, The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy (2003)
John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Harvard University Press, pb, 1999)
John D. Arras, Reader in Global Ethics (Fall 2010, available at The Copy Shop and on Collab)
TOPICS AND READINGS:
I. INTRODUCTION: Problems of global distribution and intervention with implications for health and health care (i.e., for a “global bioethics”)
· Limits of intervention in the affairs of other states
· Access to life-sustaining drugs for HIV/AIDS and other diseases
· Patent rights to pharmaceuticals vs. public health
· Claims of justice in international research with human subjects
· Human rights as a proposed lingua franca for a global bioethics
II. LIBERALISM AND THE BOUNDS OF TOLERATION
A. Nationalism and the ethics of intervention
Miller, “In Defence of Nationality” (Reader)
Walzer, “The Moral Standing of States” (Reader)
Beitz, “Nonintervention and Communal Integrity” (Reader)
Luban, “The Romance of the Nation State” (Reader)
Beitz, PTIR, Part Two, secs. 1,2,6; Afterword, 191-198.
Luban, “Intervention and Civilization: Some Unhappy Lessons of the Kosovo War” (Reader)
B. Rawls and the Problem of Tolerating Non-Liberal States
Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Hereinafter LP), Parts One and Two.
Tan, “Liberal Toleration in Rawls’ Law of Peoples” (Reader)
Nussbaum, “Women and Theories of Global Justice” (Chatterjee)
Mandle, “Tolerating Injustice” (Reader)
III. HUMANITY AND JUSTICE IN GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION
Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, 1-11, 96-100 (Reader)
World Bank, World Development Report 2006, ch. 3 (Equity from a global perspective)
A. The Humanitarian Cosmopolitan Case for Aid
Singer, “Rich and Poor” (from Practical Ethics) (Reader)
Singer, “Outsiders: Our Obligations to Those Beyond Our Borders” (Chatterjee)
Fishkin, from The Limits of Obligation, 20-24, 70-79 (Reader)
Schleffler, “Individual Responsibilities in a Global Age” (Reader)
Wenar, “Responsibility and Severe Poverty” (Reader)
B. Rawls’ Liberal Theory of Global Justice and its Critics
Rawls, LP, Part Three, 105-120
Lomasky, “Liberalism Beyond Borders” (Reader)
Beitz, PTIR, Part Three, Afterword 198-216.
M. Blake, ‘Distributive Justice, State Coercion, and Autonomy’ (Reader)
Nagel, “The Problem of Global Justice” (Reader)
Cohen and Sabel, “Extra Rempublicam Nulla Justitia?” (Reader)
Daniels, “International Health Inequalities and Global Justice” from Just Health, ch. 13, pp. 345-355 (Reader)
C. Pogge’s Theory of Global Justice as Rectification
Pogge, “ ‘Assisting’ the Global Poor” (Chatterjee)
Pogge, “Eradicating Systemic Poverty: Brief for a Global Resources Dividend” (Reader)
Pogge, “Relational Conceptions of Justice: Responsibilities for Health Outcomes” (Reader)
Risse, “Do We Owe the Global Poor Assistance or Rectification?” (Reader)
Daniels, “International Health Inequalities” from Just Health, ch. 13, 333-345 (Reader)
IV. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS
A. The “Equality of What?” Debate: Primary Goods vs. Human Capacities
Robeyns and Brighouse, “Social primary goods and capabilities as metrics of justice” (Reader)
Nussbaum, “Central Human Capabilities,” from Women and Human Development, 70-101 (Reader)
Pogge, “A Critique of the Capability Approach” (Reader)
B. The Nature and Justification of Human Rights
United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
Shue, from Basic Rights, 13-34 (Reader)
Nussbaum, “Capabilities and Human Rights” (Reader)
Rawls, “Human Rights,” in Law of Peoples, review pp. 78-81
Beitz, “Human Rights and the Law of Peoples” (Chatterjee)
J. Cohen, “Minimalism about Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope For?” (Reader)
Nickel, “Poverty and Rights” (Reader)
O’Neill, “The Dark Side of Human Rights” (Reader)
C. Health and Human Rights
United Nations, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_cescr.htm
United Nations, General Comment No. 14: The Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health (Reader)
Farmer, “Pathologies of Power: Rethinking Health and Human Rights” (Reader)
Rothman and Rothman, “The Right to Health Care: Lessons from South Africa” (Reader)
Arras and Fenton, “Bioethics and Human Rights: Allocation of Health-Related Goods” (Reader)
V. Justice and International Research Involving Human Subjects
Havrix Case Study (Reader)
Surfaxin Case Study (Reader)
National Bioethics Advisory Commission, “When Research is Concluded—Access to the Benefits of Research by Participants, Communities, and Countries,” from Ethical and Policy Issues in International Research, 55-75 (Reader)
Pogge, “Testing Our Drugs on the Poor Abroad” (Reader)
Emanuel, et al., “Addressing Exploitation: ‘Reasonable Availability’ vs. ‘Fair Benefits’” (Reader)
A. London and Zollman, “Research at the Auction Block: Problems for the Fair Benefits Approach to International Research” (Reader)