PERFECT AND IMPERFECT OBLIGATIONS TOWARDS POVERTY
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/Keywords:
Poverty, Perfect and imperfect obligations, conditions of implementation, positive and negative dutiesAbstract
The article deals with the nature of obligations toward alleviation of state of poverty. Starting points in the analysis are Kant’s distinction between perfect and imperfect duties and reinterpretation of the distionction in Onora O’Neill’s ethics of obligations. Obligations toward alleviation of poverty are generally considered as imperfect, because it is impossible to specify correlative right to goods and services we are obliged to provide to the poor. For this reason, these obligations are clasiified as a part of ethics of virtues, not ethics of rights. According to this view, conditions of implementation are inherent part of justification of obligation. This interpretation of conditions of implementation is rejected and relaxed in theories of Thomas Pogge and Amarya Sen. According to author of the article, flaws in the architecure of analysed theories, as well as, undeveloped insights of their authors suggest that the best way to articulate obligations toward alleviation of povery is to understand them as indirect perfect obligations.
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