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HomeUpcoming EventsChris Armstrong (Southampton): Institutions, Growth and Global Justice
Chris Armstrong (Southampton): Institutions, Growth and Global Justice

The view that justice requires us to move substantial quantities of material resources in the direction of poor countries is a common one in debates on global justice. Global egalitarians in particular have suggested a plethora of schemes for doing so, usually funded by global taxes of one kind or another. But those proposals face some serious challenges, which I will address in this talk. Many empirical scholars believe that the primary cause of relative underdevelopment is not a lack of material resources, or even the structure of the global economy. Instead, they point towards the character of domestic institutions as the primary determinant of economic growth. On the basis of this empirical work, a number of philosophical critics have drawn two arresting conclusions. The first is that, contrary to many global egalitarians, divergent national endowments of natural resources are not a matter for normative concern. The second is that we have no reason to believe that shifting material resources to poor countries will improve their situation. What we can do to improve their prospects may, in fact, turn out to be very limited. Rather than seeking to establish the empirical truth about the determinants of growth, I will show that, even if the 'domestic institutional thesis' is correct, the normative conclusions which our philosophical critics have drawn from it are not.

Date & time

  • Thu 18 Aug 2016, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Location

Coombs Seminar Room A

Event Series

Philosophy Departmental Seminars