International politics and ethics: Positive, negative and reciprocal duties on global poverty

Abstract

Global poverty has been an issue at the centre of ethical debates, because it has devastating effects on human life and it is the main source of various inequalities in society. This paper, which deals with the moral duties of humanity to reduce global poverty, argues that humanity has both positive duties to help the existing poor and negative duties to prevent the emergence of new poor and to find a permanent solution to poverty. The argument that ensures paper’s originality is that the poor, who claim positive rights for themselves, are obliged to fulfil their ‘reciprocal negative and positive duties’ towards the benefactors in return. By defending the opinion that a hierarchy should be determined for the interpersonal distribution of negative and positive duties, the paper also contributes to a fair distribution of duties between both those who request aid and those who aid.