Necessary Goods: Our Responsibilities to Meet Others Needs

251 Pages·1998·1.37 MB·English

by  Gillian Brock (ed.)

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NECESSARY GOODS
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Studies in Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy
General Editor:James P. Sterba,University of Notre Dame
This series analyzes and evaluates critically the major political,social,and legal
ideals,institutions,and practices of our time. The analysis may be historical or
problem-centered; the evaluation may focus on theoretical underpinnings or
practical implications. Among the recent titles in the series are:
Faces of Environmental Racism:Confronting Issues of Global Justice
edited by Laura Westra,University of Windsor,and Peter S. Wenz,
Sangamon State University
Plato Rediscovered:Human Value and Social Order
by T. K. Seung,University of Texas at Austin
Liberty for the Twenty-first Century:Contemporary Libertarian Thought
edited by Tibor R. Machan,Auburn University,and Douglas B. Rasmussen,
St. John’s University
In the Company of Others:Perspectives on Community,Family,and Culture
edited by Nancy E. Snow,Marquette University
Perfect Equality:John Stuart Mill on Well-Constituted Communities
by Maria H. Morales,Florida State University
Citizenship in a Fragile Word
by Bernard P. Dauenhauer,University of Georgia
Critical Moral Liberalism:Theory and Practice
by Jeffrey Reiman,American University
Nature as Subject:Human Obligation and Natural Community
by Eric Katz,New Jersey Institute of Technology
Can Ethics Provide Answers? And Other Essays in Moral Philosophy
by James Rachels,University of Alabama at Birmingham
Character and Culture
by Lester H. Hunt,University of Wisconsin–Madison
Same Sex:Debating the Ethics,Science,and Culture of Homosexuality
edited by John Corvino,University of Texas at Austin
Approximate Justice:Studies in Non-Ideal Theory
by George Sher,Rice University
Living in Integrity:A Global Ethic to Restore a Fragmented Earth
by Laura Westra,University of Windsor
Necessary Goods:Our Responsibilities to Meet Others’Needs
edited by Gillian Brock,University of Auckland,New Zealand
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NECESSARY GOODS
Our Responsibilities to Meet Others’Needs
Edited by Gillian Brock
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Lanham • Boulder • New York • Oxford
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ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS,INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,Inc.
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12 Hid’s Copse Road
Cumnor Hill,Oxford OX2 9JJ,England
Copyright ©1998 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,Inc.
All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recording,or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Necessary goods : our responsibility to meet others’needs / [edited
by] Gillian Brock.
p. cm. — (Studies in social,legal,and political
philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0–8476–8818–6 (cloth :alk. paper). — ISBN 0-8476-8819–4
(paper :alk. paper)
1. Social ethics. 2. Social justice. 3. Need (Philosophy)
4. Basic needs. I. Brock,Gillian. II. Series.
HM216.N4 1998
303.3'72—dc21 97–45733
CIP
ISBN 0–8476–8818–6 (cloth :alk. paper)
ISBN 0–8476–8819–4 (pbk. :alk. paper)
Printed in the United States of America
∞™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials,ANSI Z39.48–1984.
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Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Gillian Brock
1. Necessity and Desire 19
Harry G. Frankfurt
2. What Is the Force of the Claim That One Needs Something? 33
David Wiggins
3. The Concept of Needs,with a Heartwarming Offer of Aid
to Utilitarianism 57
David Braybrooke
4. Vulnerabilities and Responsibilities:An Ethical Defense
of the Welfare State 73
Robert E. Goodin
5. Rights,Obligations,and Needs 95
Onora O’Neill
6. Equality,Justice,and the Basic Needs 113
David Copp
7. Aristotelian Social Democracy 135
Martha Nussbaum
8. A Theory of Human Need 157
Len Doyal
9. Is Redistribution to Help the Needy Unjust? 173
Gillian Brock
l0. From Liberty to Universal Welfare 185
James P. Sterba
l1. Responsibility for Needs 219
John Baker and Charles Jones
v
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vi Contents
Index 233
About the Contributors 237
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Preface
A great deal of contemporary discourse about moral and political matters
invokes the language of rights, interests, or needs. Unlike the concepts of
rights or interests, however, needs have received relatively little sustained
philosophical attention. In an attempt to remedy this neglect,this anthology
collects some of the best recent accounts of needs and arguments concerning
the moral basis for responsibilities to meet needs. The anthology aims to
give a comprehensive picture of how, when, and why our needs matter
morally.
The focus for this collection is on these questions: What sort of moral or
political importance do needs have? Which needs, if any, make defensible
claims on anyone? What are the grounds for our responsibilities to meet oth-
ers’needs,when we have such responsibilities?
Though authors identify the relevant categories of needs differently,there is
surprising convergence among their positions about which needs are morally
and politically salient. On the issue of why we have responsibilities to meet
others’needs,several kinds of arguments are pressed from a variety of theoret-
ical vantage points, including contractarian, Kantian, Aristotelian, rights-
based,egalitarian,liberal,and libertarian perspectives. One might expect that
the most severe opposition to our having any responsibilities to meet needs
would come from libertarians. Several of the essays take on the libertarian,by
exploring considerations she would find persuasive and showing why libertar-
ians must acknowledge responsibilities to meet others’needs given their com-
mitments and assumptions.
Altogether,then,in this anthology the authors present a range of arguments
and so a compelling case for our having responsibilities to meet others’needs.
Moreover,the arguments’resonance with current political concerns is particu-
larly good:with global moves afoot to shrink the welfare state and cut welfare
programs (for instance,in North America,Scandinavia,and New Zealand),the
philosophical issues of just what responsibilities we have with respect to meet-
ing needs deserve careful consideration.
I am indebted to several people for help with this anthology. Stephen
Davies, Michael Ferejohn, and Geoffrey Sayre-McCord offered invaluable
advice about the project. Robin Adler,Julie Kirsch,and Jennifer Ruark,from
Rowman & Littlefield, and Cheryl Hoffman, from Hoffman-Paulson
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viii Preface
Associates, were always exceptionally helpful. I am deeply grateful to Peta
Bamber and Simone Rasmussen, who suffered much of the word-processing
anguish with me, as we constantly discovered the limitations of our current
package.
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Acknowledgments
“Aristotelian Social Democracy” is reprinted from Liberalism and the Good
edited by Bruce Douglas and Gerald Mara (New York and London:Routledge,
1990) by permission of the publisher.
“Equality,Justice,and the Basic Needs”is an abridged,reorganized,and par-
tially rewritten descendant of “The Right to an Adequate Standard of Living:
Justice,Autonomy,and the Basic Needs,”which originally appeared in Social
Philosophy and Policy 9 (1992): 231–61. Reprinted with the permission of
Cambridge University Press.
“Is Redistribution to Help the Needy Unjust?”originally appeared in Analysis
55,no. 1 (January 1995):50–60. It is reprinted here with permission.
“Necessity and Desire” was originally published in Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 45 (September 1984): 1–13. Permission to
reprint the article has been received from both the journal and the author,who
holds the copyright.
“Rights, Obligation, and Needs” was originally published in Logos 6 (1985):
29–47. Reprinted with permission of Logosand the author.
“A Theory of Human Need”has been adapted from A Theory of Human Need
by Len Doyal and Ian Gough (London: Macmillan, and New York: Guilford,
1991) and is reprinted with the permission of the authors, Macmillan Press
Ltd.,and Guilford Publications Inc.
“Vulnerabilities and Responsibilities: An Ethical Defense of the Welfare
State”was first published in American Political Science Review79 (September
1985), 775–87. Permission to reprint has been granted by the American
Political Science Association (which runs the journal and holds the copyright)
and the author.
“What Is the Force of the Claim That One Needs Something?” is extracted
from Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value (Oxford:
Blackwell,1991). Reprinted with permission.
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