Recognition theory and global poverty

So far, recognition theory has focused its attention on modern capitalism and its formation in richer Western societies and has neglected issues of global poverty. A brief sketch of Axel Honneth's recognition theory precedes an examination of how the theory can contribute to a better understanding of global poverty, and justice in relation to poverty. I wish to highlight five ways in which recognition theory can enrich our inventory of theories dealing with global poverty and justice: It emphasizes the importance of giving victims of poverty due weight in theorizing about poverty. It provides a vocabulary to conceptualize the experiences of suffering by poverty in terms of misrecognition. It highlights the importance of legal recognition and of actually having certain rights in order to be respected. It bases its critique of poverty on a particular idea of justice and how it should unfold. Finally, recognition theory demands that the poor must be involved in decision-making processes and their agency has to be recognized, respected, and socially esteemed in order to overturn injustice.     

Pogge on Poverty: Contribution or Exploitation?

Thomas Pogge argues that affluent people in the developing world have contribution‐based duties to help protect the poor. And it follows from Pogge's most general thesis that affluent people are contributing to most, if not all, instances of global poverty. In this article I explore two problems with Pogge's general thesis. First, I investigate a typical way in which affluent people would be contributing to global poverty according to Pogge: that affluent countries use their superior bargaining power to get poor countries to accept trading schemes that are unduly favourable to the affluent. I suggest that this type of relation is best understood as exploitation, and that Pogge's general thesis is better understood as a thesis about how affluent people exploit poor people rather than about how they contribute to poverty. Second, I argue that the exploitation does not have the normative content of doing harm. Although exploiting people is often morally wrong, it is not at all clear how demanding exploitation‐based duties are.     

Interpreting Rawls: An Essay on Audard,Freeman, and Pogge

This review essay on three recent books on John Rawls’s theory of justice, by Catherine Audard, Samuel Freeman, and Thomas Pogge, describes the great boon they offer serious students of Rawls. They form a united front in firmly and definitively rebuffing Robert Nozick’s libertarian critique, Michael Sandel’s communitarian critique, and more generally critiques of “neutralist liberalism,” as well as in affirming the basic unity of Rawls’s position. At a deeper level, however, they diverge, and in ways that, this essay suggests, go astray on subtle questions of interpretation: Freeman overemphasizes reciprocity, Pogge miscasts Rawls as a consequentialist, and Audard exaggerates the Kantian aspect of Rawls’s core, continuing commitment to “doctrinal autonomy.”     

Student poverty

Abstract

This article presents an exploration of the concept of student poverty from a psychoanalytic perspective. The hypothesis is made that the state of poverty, when applied to students in higher education, is a highly individual matter and relates as much to a construct of the mind as to financial hardship and associated environmental and social privations. Poverty status, it is postulated, is caused by an interplay between the unconscious and the external world of die student. Focus is concentrated on the differences in toleration and the coping strategies of students in the face of financial stringencies. This results in a body of knowledge which might aid counsellors in the task of assisting students to remedy, or appropriately manage, hardships which appear to be germane to student life in contemporary Britain.     

Profiting from poverty

We consider whether and under what conditions it is morally illicit to profit from poverty. We argue that when profit counterfactually depends on poverty, the agent making the profit is morally obliged to relinquish it. Finally, we argue that the people to whom the profit should be redirected are those on whom it counterfactually depends.     

Buddhism and poverty

I begin this essay with a brief introduction to cross-cultural comparisons and their importance for our understanding of lived Buddhism and its localization. Before examining the papers on rebirth, I first present rebirth in non-Buddhist contexts to locate our discussion within broader understandings of rebirth. I then discuss the the rebirth papers highlighting their similarities and differences.     

War and poverty

Philosophical Studies - Because the poorest people tend to die from easily preventable diseases, addressing poverty is a relatively cheap way to save lives. War, by contrast, is extremely...     

The ethics of poverty

Conclusions The conclusions set forth in this paper are of a highly tentative and even exploratory nature. I am willing to be demonstrated to be wrong at any point and excited by the realization that some of my hunches have been sufficiently far out to prompt confirmatory or invalidating research of a more precise variety. Yet I am willing to stand by my observations as to the relationship between the ethical perspective of the poor to the following seemingly unrelated events: (1) the implosion of these ethical perspectives into the middle classes, (2) through contemporary political uses of the poor by the upper classes, (3) professional interaction with the poverty community, (4) the unconscious moral identification of the middle classes with the ethics of the poor, (5) the transformation of thekinds of emotional disorder from one level of affluence to another by reason of the criterion of work as an indication of mental health, and (6) the ethical issue involved in economic determination of the use of medical and ministerial time in the care of the emotionally disturbed.     

贫困问题:基于心理学的视角

贫困心理学,是在心理学视角下研究贫困问题的一种新研究取向,是心理学在贫困领域的最新运用。现阶段贫困心理学研究主要集中在主观幸福感、心理健康、行为决策等三个方面。贫困文化理论、稀缺理论、自我损耗论分别从贫困文化、稀缺心态以及意志力资源视角解释了贫困产生的心理机制。在摆脱贫困过程中需要打破贫困循环,未来贫困心理学研究需要进一步探讨贫困的产生机制、神经生理机制,贫困心理学的本土化研究以及心理学在扶贫工作中的应用等。     

童年贫困与晚年认知老化：加速还是延缓?

童年贫困与晚年认知老化的关系尚存争议。有的研究表明, 童年贫困会加速个体的认知老化, 但是也有研究发现童年贫困会延缓个体的认知老化, 这与社会流动性起到的调节作用有关。对于童年贫困个体, 低稳定或者社会经济地位的向下流动(即长期贫困)会使逆境产生的消极影响不断累积, 从而加速个体的认知老化; 而心理韧性高的童年贫困个体, 可能会促使社会经济地位向上流动, 这会增加个体的认知储备, 并提升特定认知能力, 进而延缓认知老化。今后该领域的研究应该探讨童年主观贫困与认知老化之间的关系以及童年贫困对不同认知能力老化的影响, 也应关注童年贫困与晚年认知老化关系研究中的幸存者偏差效应。     

Internal poverty and teen pregnancy

The subjects for the present study were drawn from the female students who participated in the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) initial eighth-grade data collection. Adolescent females who later became pregnant were matched on race, birth month, and birth year with adolescent females who did not report a pregnancy. The study examined selected predictor variables from the baseline 1988 wave of data in relation to the outcome variable of pregnancy status. Results indicated a statistically significant difference in locus of control between those females who later became pregnant and those who later did not experience a pregnancy during adolescence. Those who later became pregnant were much more likely to have an external locus of control (p = .0001). Females who later became pregnant were also more likely to have a poorer sense of personal efficacy (p = .0001). Finally, females who later experienced a teen pregnancy had more traditional occupational expectations (p = .006) and lower educational expectations (p = .001) than did those who did not later report a teen pregnancy.     

The environment of childhood poverty

Poor children confront widespread environmental inequities. Compared with their economically advantaged counterparts, they are exposed to more family turmoil, violence, separation from their families, instability, and chaotic households. Poor children experience less social support, and their parents are less responsive and more authoritarian. Low-income children are read to relatively infrequently, watch more TV, and have less access to books and computers. Low-income parents are less involved in their children's school activities. The air and water poor children consume are more polluted. Their homes are more crowded, noisier, and of lower quality. Low-income neighborhoods are more dangerous, offer poorer municipal services, and suffer greater physical deterioration. Predominantly low-income schools and day care are inferior. The accumulation of multiple environmental risks rather than singular risk exposure may be an especially pathogenic aspect of childhood poverty.     

脱贫内生动力机制的质性探究

内生动力是世代贫困个体得以脱贫的核心心理资源。当前, 对脱贫的内生动力仍然缺乏系统性的解释框架。文章以脱贫的内生动力为切入点, 基于内生和外生融合性视角, 采用基于深度访谈的扎根理论方法, 运用强度抽样的策略, 以海南岛某深度贫困村的成功脱贫个体(7人)、世代贫困个体(10人)及扶贫干部(4人)为研究对象, 构建出世代贫困家庭的整体内生动力资源枯竭模型。研究表明：1)以消极的价值观、消极的自我观和被动脱贫的行为倾向为主体的“三因素洋葱模型”是世代贫困个体的消极内在驱动力; 2)作为社会心理动力的控制感缺失是引致世代贫困个体内生动力匮乏的重要诱因, 而贫困个体缺少市场理性及扶贫的运动式治理可能是导致控制感缺失的外部肇因; 3)家长亲职能力在家庭内部建设能力培植子代内生动力的过程中起着中间作用, 即家庭内部建设能力可促进家长亲职能力的提高, 进而激发子代脱贫的内生动力。     

Chilean children's essentialist reasoning about poverty

Two studies are reported that examine the hypothesis that children construct representations of poverty based on a theory of causal essentialism. One hundred and twenty Chilean kindergartners, half from low socio‐economic status (SES) schools and the other half from high‐SES schools, participated in the study. The results showed children's tendency towards an essentialist reasoning about poverty. All children in the study privileged internal features over external ones when deciding who is poor, and also used wealth category as a preferred clue to make inferences about people's attributes. However, only high‐SES children's answers were consistent with the belief that poverty is inherited and resistant to growth. Implications of these findings for theory and practice, as well as remaining questions, are addressed.     

Global poverty: four normative positions

Global poverty is a huge problem in today's world. This survey article seeks to be a first guide to those who are interested in, but relatively unfamiliar with, the main issues, positions and arguments in the contemporary philosophical discussion of global poverty. The article attempts to give an overview of four distinct and influential normative positions on global poverty. Moreover, it seeks to clarify, and put into perspective, some of the key concepts and issues that take center stage in the philosophical discussion of global poverty. The four positions to be discussed are labeled the Maximalist Position, the Minimalist Position, Intermediate Position I and Intermediate Position II. After an account of these four distinct positions, we turn, in the conclusion, to a discussion of what role empirical sciences such as economics and political science should play in normative considerations about global poverty.