Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights

Diana Tietjens Meyers

No other collection of philosophical papers focuses on the diverse ways poverty affects the agency of the poor, the reasons why poverty alleviation schemes should also promote the agency of beneficiaries, and the fitness of the human rights regime to secure both development and free agency
All new essays by leading moral and politcal philosophers

Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights

Diana Tietjens Meyers

Description

Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights collects thirteen new essays that analyze how human agency relates to poverty and human rights respectively as well as how agency mediates issues concerning poverty and social and economic human rights. No other collection of philosophical papers focuses on the diverse ways poverty impacts the agency of the poor, the reasons why poverty alleviation schemes should also promote the agency of beneficiaries, and the fitness of the human rights regime to secure both economic development and free agency.

The book is divided into four parts. Part 1 considers the diverse meanings of poverty both from the standpoint of the poor and from that of the relatively well-off. Part 2 examines morally appropriate responses to poverty on the part of persons who are better-off and powerful institutions. Part 3 identifies economic development strategies that secure the agency of the beneficiaries. Part 4 addresses the constraints poverty imposes on agency in the context of biomedical research, migration for work, and trafficking in persons.

Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights

Diana Tietjens Meyers

Introduction, Diana Tietjens Meyers
Part 1: Thinking through the Meanings of Poverty
1. Surviving Poverty, Claudia Card
2. Poverty Knowledge, Coercion, and Social Rights: A Discourse Ethical Contribution to Social Epistemology, David Ingram
3. Rethinking Coercion for a World of Poverty and Transnational Migration, Diana Tietjens Meyers
Part 2: Ethical Responses to Poverty
4. Responsibility for Violations of the Human Right to Subsistence, Elizabeth Ashford
5. Global Poverty, Decent Work, and Remedial Responsibilities: What the Developed World Owes to the Developing World and Why, Gillian Brock
6. Trafficking in Human Beings: Partial Compliance Theory, Enforcement Failure, and Obligations to Victims, Leslie P. Francis and John Francis
7. "Are My Hands Clean?" Responsibility for Global Gender Disparities, Alison Jaggar
Part 3: Promoting Development and Ensuring Agency
8. Agency and Intervention: How (Not) to Fight Global Poverty, Ann Cudd
9. Empowerment Through Self-Subordination?: Microcredit and Women's Agency, Serene J. Khader
10. Paradoxes of Development: Rethinking the Right to Development, Amy Allen
Part 4: Transnational Transactions and Human Rights
11. Poverty, Voluntariness, and Consent to Participate in Research, Alan Wertheimer
12. Children's Rights, Parental Agency and the Case for Non-coercive Responses to Care Drain, Anca Gheus
13. Human Rights and Global Wrongs: The Role of Human Rights Discourse in Responses to Trafficking, John Christman
Index

Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights

Diana Tietjens Meyers

Author Information

Diana Tietjens Meyers

Diana Tietjens Meyers is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. She has held the Ignacio Ellacuría Chair of Social Ethics at Loyola University, Chicago and the Laurie Chair in Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. She works in three main areas of philosophy - philosophy of action, feminist ethics, and human rights theory. She is currently writing a monograph, Victims' Stories and the Advancement of Human Rights.

Contributors:

Amy Allen

Elizabeth Ashford

Gillian Brock

Claudia Card

John Christman

Ann E. Cudd

John Francis

Leslie P. Francis

Anca Gheaus

David Ingram

Alison M. Jaggar

Serene Khader

Diana Tietjens Meyers

Alan Wertheimer

Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights

Diana Tietjens Meyers

Reviews and Awards

"I strongly recommend this collection to anyone interested in present philosophical debates on global poverty and human rights." - Sean Aas, Australasian Journal of Philosophy

"The volume Poverty, Agency, and Human Rights is an important contribution to the fields of global ethics and justice. ... The volume is, thus, deeply concerned about practical issues in nonideal theory. We believe that this represents a significant improvement over several of the earlier contributions to global ethics and justice." - Julian Culip, Ethics

"Human rights practitioners have been stressing the importance of community participation and stakeholder engagement for some time, so it is helpful to see... what a philosophical argument for incorporating these considerations would look like."