3 - Institutions, Severe Poverty, and the Obligations of Affluence

Summary

In Chapter 3, I confront views offered by anti-cosmopolitan theorists. According to the first anti-cosmopolitan view, our obligations to guarantee the substance of the right to subsistence is owed primarily to our compatriots. These obligations outweigh our obligations to those beyond our borders. According to the second anti-cosmopolitan view, we don’t have any obligations beyond our own borders. On these views, our obligations to others are delimited by the particularities of our reciprocal relationship with our compatriots. In response, I draw from John Rawls to articulate an institutional conception of rights. On such a conception, our obligations toward others arise in particular contexts where we interact with and coerce one another vis-à-vis our participation in an institutional scheme. Because we are implicated in trans- and supranational economic, political, and social institutions, we interact institutionally with severely poor people. Employing such an argument serves as a defense against anti-cosmopolitan theorists.