Giving well: The ethics of philanthropy

319 Pages·2011·64.349 MB·English

by  Illingworth, Patricia, Thomas Pogge, and Leif Wenar (eds.)

giving we I
THE ETHICS OF PHILANTHROPY

Giving Well

Giving Well
The Ethics of Philanthropy
EDITED BY
Patricia Illingworth, Thomas Pogge, and
Leif Wenar
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Giving well: the ethics of philanthropy / edited by Patricia Illingworth,
Thomas Pogge, and LeifWenar.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-19-973907-3 (hardcover]; 978-0-19-995858-0 (paperback)
1. Charities—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Illingworth, Patricia M. L.,
1954- II. Pogge, Thomas Winfried Menko. III. Wenar, Leif.
HV41.G525 2010
174’93617—dc22 2010008770
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paperr
Contents
Contributors vii
Introduction: The Ethics of Philanthropy 3
Patricia Illingworth, Thomas Pogge, and Leif Wenar
1 What Should a Billionaire Give—and What Should You? 13
Peter Singer
2 Obligations of Justice and Beneficence to Aid the
Severely Poor 26
Elizabeth Ashford
3 How International Nongovernmental Organizations
Should Act 46
Thomas Pogge
4 The Valmont Effect: The Warm-Glow Theory of
Philanthropy 67
Jon Elster
5 Aiding the World’s Poor: New Challenges for Donor States 84
Roger C Riddell
6 Poverty Is No Pond: Challenges for the Affluent 104
Leif Wenar
7 Ethics in Translation: Principles and Power in the
Philanthropic Encounter 133
Alex de Waal
8 Global Philanthropy and Global Governance: The
Problematic Moral Legitimacy of the Relationship
between Global Civil Society and the United Nations 149
Kenneth Anderson
9 Toward a Political Theory of Philanthropy 177
Rob Reich
10 Giving Back: Norms, Ethics, and Law in the Service
of Philanthropy 196
Patricia Illingworth
vi Contents
11 The Funder as Founder: Ethical Considerations of the
Philanthropic Creation of Nonprofit Organizations 220
James Shulman
12 The Unfulfilled Promise of Corporate Philanthropy 243
Thomas W. Dunfee
13 Philanthropy, Self-Interest, and Accountability: American
Universities and Developing Countries 264
Devesh Kapur
Index 286
Contributors
Kenneth Anderson is a law professor at Washington College of Law,
American University, and Hoover Institution Task Force on National
Security and Law fellow. Professor Anderson was formerly general coun­
sel to the Open Society Institute and director of the Human RightsWatch
Arms Division, and currently chairs the boards of two global philan­
thropies. His book on U.S.-UN relations, Returning to Earth, will be
published in 2010.
Elizabeth Ashford teaches in the Department of Moral Philosophy at the
University of St. Andrews, Scotland. She has held visiting fellowships at
the Harvard University Edmund J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics and
at the Oxford University Centre for Ethics and the Philosophy of Law.
Her publications include Utilitarianism, Integrity and Partiality (2000);
The Demandingness of Scanlon's Contractualism (2003); and The Duties
Imposed by the Human Right to Basic Necessities (2007).
Alex de Waal is a program director of the Social Science Research
Council and senior fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He has
written or edited 13 books on humanitarianism, conflict, and HIV/AIDS
in Africa, especially Sudan, most recently Darfur: A New History of a Long
War (2008). He has served as adviser to the African Union mediation
team for the Darfur peace talks (2005-2006) and the African Union
High-Level Panel on Darfur (2009). He was awarded an OBE in the New
Year's Honors List of 2009, and was on the Prospect/Foreign Policy list of
100 public intellectuals in 2008 and on the Atlantic Monthly list of 27
"brave thinkers” in 2009.
Thomas W. Dunfee (1941-2008) was the Joseph Kolodny Professor of
Social Responsibility in Business at the Wharton School. He served on the
editorial board of six leading journals and was the president of both the
Academy of Legal Studies in Business and the Society for Business Ethics.
His 1999 book with Thomas Donaldson, The Ties That Bind, is the
canonical statement of their widely influential Integrative Social Contracts
Theory, and has been called the bible of business ethics. Dunfee authored
more than 50 articles and almost a dozen books on a wide range of topics,
including corruption, social investment, duties to rescue in catastrophes,
Asian business practices, and the ethics of travel agencies. We honor his
distinguished career and his pioneering life’s work on morality within the
marketplace.
Contributors
viii
Jon Elster is the Robert K. Merton Professor of Social Science, Columbia
University. He also holds the Chaire de Rationalite et Sciences Sociales at
the College de France. His publications include Alchemies of the Mind
(1999), Ulysses Unbound (2000), Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in
Historical Perspective (2004), Explaining Social Behavior (2007), Agir con-
tre soi (2007), and Le dentessement (2009).
Patricia Illingworth is associate professor in the Department of
Philosophy and in the College of Business Administration at Northeastern
University. She is also a lecturer in law at Northeastern University School
of Law. Illingworth has held fellowships at Harvard Law School and at
Harvard Medical School. She is the author of Trusting Medicine: The Moral
Costs of Managed Care (2005), and a coeditor of The Power of Pills (2006)
and Ethical Healthcare (2006). She is currently a visiting scholar in the
Harvard Program in Ethics and Health.
Devesh Kapur is the director of the Centre for Advanced Study of India,
and is the Madan Lal Sobti Associate Professor for the Study of Con­
temporary India, University of Pennsylvania. He is the coauthor of The
World Bank: Its First Half Century (1997), Give Us Your Best and Brightest:
The Global Hunt for Talent and Its Impact on the Developing World (2005),
and Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design (2005). His most
recent book, Diaspora, Democracy and Development: The Impact of
International Migration from India (Princeton University Press, 2010). He
has a BTech and MS in chemical engineering and a PhD in public policy
from Princeton University.
Thomas Pogge is Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs,
Yale University; professorial fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy
and Public Ethics, Australian National University; research director,
Centre for the Study of Mind in Nature, University of Oslo; and adjunct
professor at the University of Central Lancashire. His recent publications
include World Poverty and Human Rights (2nd ed., 2008) and Politics as
Usual: What Lies behind the Pro-Poor Rhetoric (2010). Pogge's current
work is focused on a team effort toward developing a complement to the
pharmaceutical patent regime that would improve access to advanced
medicines for the poor worldwide (www.healthimpactfund.org).
Rob Reich is an associate professor of political science and, by courtesy,
in philosophy at Stanford University. He is the codirector of Stanford's
Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. He is the author of Bridging
Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education (2002) and is
completing on a book on ethics, philanthropy, and public policy.
Roger C. Riddell is a board member of Oxford Policy Management, a
principal of the Policy Practice, and a member of an independent advisory