Justice, Charity, and Disaster Relief: What,If Anything, Is Owed to Haiti, Japan,and New Zealand?

Laura Valentini University College London

Whenever fellow humans suffer due to natural catastrophes, we have a duty to help them. This duty is not only acknowl-edged in moral theory but also expressed in ordinary people’s reactions to phenomena such as tsunamis, hurricanes, andearthquakes. Despite being widely acknowledged, this duty is also widely disputed: some believe it is a matter of justice,others a matter of charity. Although central to debates in international political theory, the distinction between justice andcharity is hardly ever systematically drawn. To fill this gap in the literature, I consider three accounts of this distinction—the “agent-based,” the “recipient-based,” and the “mixed” view—and argue that they are all unsatisfactory. I then offera fourth alternative, the “autonomy” view, which successfully overcomes the difficulties affecting its rivals. I conclude byconsidering the implications of this view for the moral grounds of disaster relief in earthquake-stricken Haiti, New Zealand,and Japan.

Over the last few years, our planet has been af-fected by intense seismic activity, with terribleconsequences for a large number of people. On

January 12, 2010, Haiti was devastated by a catastrophicearthquake that claimed hundreds of thousands of livesand severely damaged the country’s already poor infra-structure (BBC 2010). About a year later, on February 22,2011, an almost equally intense earthquake struck the cityof Christchurch, New Zealand. Damages and deaths werenot nearly as high as in Haiti, but still serious enough forthe government to declare a state of national emergency(BBC 2011a).1 Only 20 days later, on March 11, 2011,a violent undersea earthquake took place off the coast ofJapan, generating a monstrous tsunami wave. Villages andcities along the coast were swept away, thousands of peo-

Laura Valentini is Lecturer in Political Philosophy, University College London, Department of Political Science, 29/30 Tavistock Square,London WC1H 9QU (l.valentini@ucl.ac.uk).

I am grateful to Thomas Pogge, Miriam Ronzoni, Henry Shue, Annie Stilz, and John Tasioulas for reading and commenting on earlierdrafts of this article. Previous incarnations of it (by the title “Global Justice and Assistance: Three Approaches and a Fourth One”) werepresented at the Nuffield Political Theory Workshop (Oxford, 2008), the University of Manchester Political Theory Seminar (Manchester,2009), the Political Studies Association Annual Conference (Manchester, 2009), and the International Ethics and Public Policy readinggroup (ANU, 2009). I wish to thank the participants at these events, particularly Christian Barry, Richard Child, Pablo Gilabert, RobertJubb, and Patrick Tomlin (twice), for excellent comments and critical remarks. I am also grateful to the Editor of the American Journal ofPolitical Science and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their detailed and helpful comments. Finally, special thanks go to ChristianList for his advice, patience, and continued support.

1See also http://www.ccc.govt.nz/homeliving/civildefence/chchearthquake/index.aspx (accessed June 20, 2012).

ple died, and Japanese authorities had to face a nuclearemergency, provoked by radiation leaks from the dam-aged Fukushima-Daiichi power station (BBC 2011b).

Faced with these disasters, many governments havetried to help the affected regions by sending food sup-plies, medical staff, military personnel, and other formsof aid. Charitable help, it is said, becomes imperativewhen other fellow humans find themselves in desperatecircumstances. Although the international mobilizationin response to these crises seems praiseworthy, some havecriticized its rhetoric, with particular reference to the caseof Haiti. As one commentator puts it, when it comes toHaiti, people should “stop having a conversation aboutcharity and start having a conversation about justice. . . .What the world should be pondering . . . is: What is Haiti

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owed?” (Kim 2010).2 This assertion implicitly suggeststhat there might be a fundamental difference between thecase of Haiti and those of Japan and New Zealand. Talk ofcharitable aid might be appropriate in the latter, but notin the former.3

For those who hold this view, the world might prideitself with generously helping New Zealand and Japan,but not with helping Haiti. It is a mistake to think of thecitizens and governments of richer countries as selflesslydonating their own resources to alleviate the suffering ofHaiti’s population.4 Haitians are entitled to most of thoseresources in the first place: they have a right to them. Isthis a plausible claim?

Of course, the claim would be rather uncontroversialhad Haiti, but not Japan and New Zealand, signed a validinternational treaty of mutual help, giving its signato-ries entitlements to assistance in case of natural disasters.But my discussion, like the debate in the media, pro-ceeds by bracketing off any such treaties and comparableentitlement-generating special relations.

To assess the plausibility of the claim that Haiti isowed justice (and not merely charity), then, we need togain a more systematic understanding of the distinctionbetween duties of justice and duties of charity.5 In par-ticular, we need to identify the existence conditions ofthese two types of duties, beyond cases involving obvi-ous entitlement-generating relations (e.g., valid treatiesor contracts).6 Surprisingly, the contemporary politicaltheory literature is unclear on this point. Political theo-rists agree that certain fundamental human interests—including life, bodily integrity, health, access to nutrition,shelter, and sanitation—ought to be universally protected.However, they disagree about the conditions under whichtheir protection gives rise to rights and thus becomes astringent matter of justice. Since justice is logically priorto charity, this is no minor disagreement. To act out of

2Similar complaints have been expressed elsewhere. See, e.g., Con-cannon and Phillips (2010) and Isaacs (2010).

3To be clear, critics of the relief efforts in Haiti have not explicitlyreferred to Japan and New Zealand. In fact, these regions had notbeen hit by earthquakes when the debate about Haiti was takingplace. My point is that no comparable complaints have been ad-vanced in relation to the relief efforts in Japan and New Zealand.This, in turn, suggests the existence of a disanalogy between ourmoral position towards Haiti and our moral position towards theother two countries.

4See Doyle (2010) for an example of the use of the language of helpand donation.

5What I call duties of charity are often also referred to as dutiesof humanity or beneficence. My discussion is neutral across thesedifferent characterizations.

6I borrow the idea of an “existence condition” of justice fromAbizadeh (2007, 3–4).

charity is to help others in need—at reasonable costs—using one’s own resources, namely the resources one hasa right to. This means that, until we know what justicerequires, we cannot know what kinds of duties apply tous (Barry 1991, 204–10).

Against this backdrop, my aim in this article istwofold. In the first three sections, I wish to clear up amajor area of confusion in current debates on global po-litical theory by carefully reconstructing and criticizingthree prominent accounts of the existence conditions ofduties of justice. These are what I call the “agent-based,”the “recipient-based,” and the “mixed” views. I argue thatthe agent-based view is objectionably conservative, andits recipient-based counterpart is too demanding, whilethe mixed view is problematically ad hoc.

In the second part of the article, I build on my cri-tiques to defend a fourth account of the existence condi-tions of duties of justice: the “autonomy view.” On thisview, justice demands that we refrain from underminingthe necessary conditions for people to lead autonomouslives. I argue that this view is superior to its rivals andapply it to the cases of Haiti, Japan, and New Zealand.I conclude that critics of the relief efforts in Haiti areprobably right. If certain (plausible) factual assumptionsare correct, addressing Haiti’s plight is, for the most part,a matter of justice, while addressing Japan’s and NewZealand’s is not.

Even though this article discusses the relationshipbetween justice and charity, much of it focuses on justicein particular. There is in fact relatively little controversyabout the existence conditions of duties of charity. Theo-rists tend to agree that an agent is under a duty of charityif and only if there are people in need, and she can helpthem at reasonable costs. Logically prior, and normativelymore controversial, are the existence conditions of dutiesof justice. Regarding justice, three points of clarificationare in order.

First, I here understand justice as a political ideal.That is, I take demands of justice to be those that canbe legitimately enforced by the state or other, function-ally equivalent, agents. Second, I follow other theoristsin assuming that the existence conditions of justice in-clude moderate scarcity and limited altruism.7 On thisassumption, the function of principles of justice is to es-tablish how entitlements to valuable but scarce resourcesought to be assigned among a plurality of agents com-peting over them. Third, and finally, my discussion, likethe debate it addresses, is premised on a commitment toequal respect for persons. This commitment implies that,

7These are the so-called Humean circumstances of justice. See Rawls(1971, 126–30).

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although each of us has a legitimate special interest inher own life, every human being is an ultimate object ofmoral concern, whose projects and pursuits ought to berespected.8

The Agent-Based View

As noted at the outset, political theorists agree that cer-tain fundamental human interests ought to be universallyprotected. However, they disagree about the conditionsunder which these interests give rise to rights, such thattheir protection becomes a stringent matter of justice.One account of such conditions is offered by what I callthe “agent-based view.” On this view, whether a dutycounts as one of justice depends, crucially, on the actualposition of the duty bearer. This view, defended most fa-mously by Kant ([1797] 1991)9 and Mill ([1863] 1998,chap. 5) and more recently by O’Neill (1996, chap. 5)and Meckled-Garcia (2008), holds that “perfection” is anecessary condition for a duty to count as one of justice.10

The agent-based view: An agent is under a duty ofjustice only if the duty is perfect, i.e., its contentand mode of performance are fully specified.

When duties are perfect, duty bearers have no dis-cretion in establishing the content of the duty and how itshould be fulfilled: what they ought to do is determinedwith “mathematical exactitude” (Kant [1797] 1991, 6:233). Unless duties of justice are mathematically precise,it is said, their recipients cannot have rights to their per-formance. For an agent A to have a right to X, there mustbe another agent B, with a duty to provide A with X, orto respect A’s X (Raz 1986, chap. 7). But without a clearaccount of who B is, and what X amounts to, A cannot besaid to have a right to X. Indeed, A does not know whatthe content of her right is and from whom she may claimits fulfillment.

A few duties are perfect by their very nature. For in-stance, the content of the duty not to kill or assault isarguably clear, as it is clear that it is owed to each andevery person, by each and every person. But since manyother duties are not “precise” in this way, to qualify asduties of justice they need to be “made perfect” through

8This is often considered the greatest common denominator of con-temporary approaches to justice. See, e.g., Kymlicka (2002, 1–9).

9Indications of paragraphs refer to the Prussian Academy edition.

10This means that not all perfect duties are duties of justice, but allduties of justice are perfect.

institutional allocation (cf. Buchanan 1987, 570). For in-stance, we may all have duties to provide resources to theneedy, but such duties cannot be regarded as duties ofjustice until institutions tell us who exactly ought to pro-vide what for whom. Until then, there cannot be rights toresources because the corresponding duties remain inde-terminate: there is no clearly identified agent who couldviolate them. Rights without duty bearers, proponentsof the agent-based view complain, are empty rhetoric(O’Neill 1996, 132–33; see also O’Neill 2000, chap. 6).

On this view, institutions that precisely establish thebearers and content of duties of justice are a necessaryexistence condition of many of those duties. As O’Neillsays, many rights, especially positive ones to goods andservices, “presuppose institutional arrangements” (1996,131, original emphasis) because without such arrange-ments, we cannot know who ought to do what towardsthe fulfillment of those rights. Is this a plausible view?It is not, because it gets the relation between justice andjust institutions the wrong way round (see Ashford 2006,2007, 2009; Tasioulas 2007).11 Institutions are best seen asvehicles for discharging duties of justice that already existrather than as necessary conditions for their existence.

Consider the following analogy. It makes perfectsense to say that the victim of a car accident is entitledto compensation from those responsible for it, even be-fore they (or a court) establish exactly how much eachone owes, i.e., even before they are each bearers of perfectduties. To be sure, we can easily identify the offendersas violators of the perfect duty to not harm, but in theabsence of institutional allocation (or coordination), wecannot tell who exactly owes what to the victim. But is thissufficient to claim that the victim has no right to compen-sation? Clearly not. If the culprits fail to coordinate andgive the victim what she is owed, we can criticize themfor violating the victim’s rights. It would be extremelycounterintuitive to claim that, if those who have causedthe accident (or indeed judges) fail to determine howto allocate responsibility, the victim has no right againstthem. As this example shows, precise allocation is neces-sary to discharge preexisting duties of justice; whethersuch duties exist or not rests on independent moralconsiderations.

Similarly, whether the privileged of the world haveduties of justice to relieve the plight of those in need(Haitians, New Zealanders, etc.) has nothing to do withwhether such duties are perfect (precisely allocated via

11Another famous charge against this view is that the protection ofnegative rights often demands positive action (e.g., respect for theright to liberty requires positive institutional provisions, such aspolice and tribunals). For this argument, see Shue (1996, 37–38).

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institutions) but rests on independent moral considera-tions. Precise institutional allocation only matters for thefulfillment of such duties, not for their existence. Oth-erwise, mere failures of coordination—when coordina-tion is in fact possible—would suffice to free us fromjustice-based obligations and deprive recipients of theirentitlements, which seems absurd.

To conclude, the agent-based view is excessivelystatus-quo biased insofar as it takes de facto coordinationand institutional allocation to be an existence conditionof positive duties of justice. It conflates moral rights withde facto recognized ones, thereby reaching implausibleconclusions.

The Recipient-Based View

The recipient-based view holds that all human beingshave certain fundamental rights—including rights tomaterial resources—solely by virtue of their human-ity. This approach, recently defended by Sen (2004)and Caney (2007), is recipient-based in that it defines(some) rights exclusively by reference to those humaninterests that ought to be universally fulfilled, such aslife, bodily integrity, nutrition, shelter, sanitation, and soforth. From this perspective, Haitians, New Zealanders,and Japanese people whose fundamental interests havesuffered a setback as a consequence of the relevantearthquakes are all entitled (i.e., have a right) toassistance.

Although elegant and parsimonious, this view is alsoincomplete. This is because for any given right there mustalso be a duty. As proponents of the agent-based view em-phasize, rights without corresponding duties are emptyrhetoric. How, then, do advocates of the recipient-basedapproach seek to allocate the duties correlative to univer-sal rights? Even though they say relatively little aboutthis, we can envisage a number of alternative alloca-tion principles compatible with their outlook.12 Each ofthese allocation principles corresponds to a particular ac-count of the sufficient existence conditions of duties ofjustice.13

Account 1: An agent is under a duty of justice ifthere are basic human interests to be fulfilled and

12Caney himself admits that his approach is silent about how re-sponsibility for the fulfillment of persons’ universal rights shouldbe distributed. See Caney (2007, 294).

13I say sufficient, because proponents of the recipient-based viewmight want to claim that there are also other duties of justiceactivated by special relations. As I said at the outset, these dutiesfall outside the scope of the present discussion.

she has the ability to fulfill them up to the levelof marginal utility.14

On this view, a version of which has been famouslydefended by Singer (1972), each person has a duty alwaysto act so as to promote the fulfillment of persons’ basic in-terests worldwide, so long as doing so does not undermineher own fundamental interests. Despite its simplicity, thissolution is known to be problematically overdemanding(see Miller 2004; cf. Scheffler 1994). To ask people alwaysto act so as to maximize interest-fulfillment is to deprivethem of a space within which to advance their own goals.A theory of justice denying agents the right to pursuetheir own projects is one that undermines the values it ismeant to affirm.

In response to this worry, recipient-based theoristsmight focus on institutions as the most appropriate meansof discharging the duties correlative to universal rights.Once institutional arrangements have been established,so the argument goes, people need no longer worryabout rights fulfillment: institutions will take care of it(cf. Shue 1988 and Goodin 1985, 1988). In contrast tothe agent-based view, here, institutions are not existenceconditions of duties of justice, but instrumental to theirrealization.

Unfortunately, this solution is also susceptible tothe overdemandingness charge. Considering how muchinstitution building would be required to fulfill uni-versal rights, people in the current generation wouldhave to devote their entire lives to the construction ofjust global institutions, thereby neglecting their ownprojects.

One might object that the costs of just institutionbuilding are so prohibitive only due to partial compli-ance. If everyone did their fair share, the costs of bringingabout greater justice would be bearable.15 This leads usto a second possible account of the sufficient existenceconditions of duties of justice.

Account 2: An agent is under a duty of justice ifthere are basic human interests to be fulfilled andshe has the ability to do her fair share in fulfillingthem.

This option appeals to a principle like the following:your duties of justice always correspond to what your

14Meaning up to the level at which further efforts to fulfill others’basic interests would cause one’s own basic interests to becomeunfulfilled.

15I am grateful to Ian Carroll for raising this potential objection.

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fair share would be, assuming full compliance (see Mur-phy 2000). This agent-centered principle sits uncomfort-ably with a recipient-based approach to justice. Accordingto this principle, if the United Kingdom, France, Ger-many, Italy, and Spain were equally well placed to ad-dress Haiti’s (or some other country’s) plight,16 and Haitineeded at least 10 billion dollars’ worth of aid, each ofthese countries would have a duty of justice to invest2 billion dollars in relief operations. If Italy and Spainfailed to honor this duty, France, Germany, and the UnitedKingdom would still have a duty of justice to invest only2 billion dollars each—which, ex hypothesi, would notbe enough to address Haiti’s plight—even if they couldall easily invest more than that (for discussion of thesekinds of cases, see Miller 2011; cf. Frankfurt 1987). Thisway of looking at things is clearly unacceptable from theperspective of a recipient-based view, which means thatAccount 2 fails to provide a viable response to the dif-ficulties with Account 1. How, then, can the advocatesof a recipient-based view escape the overdemandingnesscharge?

A third suggestion is to place limits on “the amountthat one may permissibly require of individuals” (Caney2007, 296; see also Sen 2004, 339). On this “cost-sensitive”version of the recipient-based approach, the sufficientexistence conditions of duties of justice can be defined asfollows:

Account 3: An agent is under a duty of justice ifthere are basic human interests to be fulfilled andshe can fulfill them at reasonable costs.

Although appealing, this proposal robs rights andjustice of much of their normative force. Consider a rightto adequate nutrition. On the cost-sensitive view, to saythat there is such a right is to say that we have a stringentduty of justice to help fulfill this right up to a certaincost threshold, and no such duty above the threshold. Ifit turned out that the cost threshold would be met beforethe right is fulfilled, how could we say that there is a rightto adequate nutrition in the first place, given that no onewould be morally bound by a duty to provide adequatenutrition? We need to calculate costs and allocate dutiesbefore proclaiming the existence of rights strictly under-stood (Raz 1986, chaps. 7 and 8).17 The recipient-basedapproach fails to do this, thus potentially turning talk of

16For simplicity, I am here assuming away any possible specialresponsibilities.

17A way out of this difficulty may be to rethink the notion of aright and connect it to the idea of “dynamic duties,” namely dutiesgradually to bring about conditions under which rights can befulfilled. For this proposal, see Gilabert (2009). For an alternative

rights into empty rhetoric, as feared by proponents of theagent-based view (O’Neill 1996, 133).

The Mixed View

What I call the “mixed view,” recently defended by Miller(2007), tries to bring together considerations about themoral position (i.e., the responsibility) of the agent andthat of the recipient in defining what counts as a duty ofjustice. On this view, the sufficient existence conditions ofduties of justice, as opposed to duties of charity, can bestated as follows:18

The mixed view: an agent is under a duty of justiceif she has the ability to meet basic needs and noone else, including the recipient, is responsiblefor bringing about the recipient’s plight; if theyare, they bear duties of justice (see Miller 2007,47–48, 254–59).

To illustrate how this account can be applied to spe-cific cases, Miller offers a series of examples involving aneedy society, call it “N,” such as Haiti, New Zealand, orJapan:

Scenario 1. N is destitute due to its impru-dent policies. In Miller’s view, other bystandersocieties—call them “S” for brevity—have a dutyof charity to assist N (Miller 2007, 258).

Scenario 2. N is destitute due to a natural catas-trophe. In Miller’s view, S have a duty of justiceto assist N (Miller 2007, 254).

Scenario 3. N is destitute due to A’s rapaciousbehavior. In this case, Miller says, A has a dutyof justice to remedy N’s situation, while S have aduty of charity to do so (Miller 2007, 257–58).

Following Miller, we would have to conclude thatHaiti, Japan, and New Zealand are all entitled to assis-tance on grounds of justice, insofar as their situation isanalogous to Scenario 2.

proposal in a similar direction, see the distinction between rightsand proto-rights as discussed in Valentini (2012).

18Miller calls duties of charity duties of humanity. As I said infootnote 5, my discussion is neutral across these different labels.Moreover, here too I focus on the sufficient existence conditionsof duties of justice, because Miller might (in fact does) think thatthere are conditions, such as special relations, giving rise to furtherenforceable duties of justice. As I have already mentioned, suchspecial relations are bracketed off from the present discussion.

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Is the view behind this conclusion plausible? Eventhough Miller’s responsibility-sensitive strategy points inthe right direction, the rationale underpinning it appearsexcessively ad hoc. His attempt to be sensitive to the moralposition of the duty bearer as well as to that of the recipientleads to an unfortunate lack of consistency.

For instance, the different treatment of Scenarios 1and 2 is meant to reflect the different moral position of therecipient of duties of aid: in Scenario 1, N is responsiblefor its plight, while in Scenario 2 it is not. However, it isunclear why this should make any difference to the natureof S’s duties, given that their moral position remains un-changed. In both scenarios, S are simply bystanders whocan help N at reasonable costs. If so, why should theirduties be a matter of charity in Scenario 1, but of justicein Scenario 2?

By the same token, there seems to be no principledreason why a society’s duty towards N should remainof the same kind when it is responsible for causing N’splight (A in Scenario 3) and when such a plight has beencaused by a natural catastrophe (Scenario 2). Surely, if Ihave intentionally or negligently harmed you, you havea right to compensation against me in particular, and Ihave a stringent duty of justice to rectify the harm caused.But why would my duty be of the same kind when Ihave nothing to do with your plight? The former exam-ple seems to involve a stringent duty of justice, whilethe latter a less stringent, but still important, duty ofcharity.19

Finally, Miller claims that S’s duty towards N changesdepending on whether N’s plight has been caused bya natural catastrophe (Scenario 2) or whether it hasbeen caused by an agent—be it some other society(Scenario 3) or N itself (Scenario 1). Yet, it seems moreconsistent to say that S’s duty is one of charity across allthree cases. If Charles is hanging off a cliff and I can res-cue him at reasonable cost to myself, why should my dutytowards him change depending on whether he has acci-dentally slipped off the cliff, has been pushed by John, or

19One might complain that, contrary to what I have said, the dutyin Scenario 2 is indeed one of justice. After all, N is not responsiblefor the catastrophe, and we might think that its plight puts intoquestion S’s entitlements. Why not adopt this view? There are atleast two reasons why not. First, the view presupposes that justiceis about the rectification of the effects of bad brute luck on people’slives, but this is not an obvious or default position (see Lippert-Rasmussen 2009). It is at least equally plausible to think that badluck does not make a difference to our entitlements, but to whatwe ought to do with them (e.g., help those in need). Second, theview also implies that S’s duties in Scenario 3 are less stringent (orat any rate different) from their duties in Scenario 2. But as I shallshortly explain in the main text, this view is implausible.

has deliberately taken a risk?20 In all three cases, I have aduty to help him because he is in difficulty, independentlyof other people’s (and his own) responsibilities.21 Indeed,my moral position with respect to Charles does not de-pend on the cause of his current difficulties—unless, ofcourse, I have brought them about. So long as I am abystander and can help at reasonable costs, I have a dutyof charity to do so.

In sum, while Miller seems right in making responsi-bility central to the distinction between justice and char-ity, his attempt to balance agent-based and recipient-based considerations lacks systematicity and leads tocounterintuitive conclusions. As our discussion of his sce-narios shows, our judgments about justice versus charityseem to track the moral position of the duty bearer alone,independently of that of the recipient. Specifically, dutiesof justice appear to be triggered whenever the agency ofthe duty bearer contributes to bringing about the recipi-ent’s predicament (e.g., A in Scenario 3), but not other-wise (S in Scenarios 1 and 2). In the next section, I arguethat we can use this insight to construct a more plausi-ble and systematic account of the existence conditions ofduties of justice.

The Autonomy View

On what I call the “autonomy” view, the necessary andsufficient existence conditions of duties of justice can bestated as follows.

The autonomy view: An agent is under a dutyof justice if and only if she has the ability torefrain from undermining the necessary condi-tions for others to lead autonomous lives (“au-tonomy conditions”).

On the autonomy view, each person has a right notto be deprived of the social conditions to lead an au-tonomous life, and duties of justice are correlative to such

20Cf. Zimmermann’s (1981, 135) variation on a famous exampleby Singer (1972). For further discussion of this point, but in thecontext of a general critique of nonrelational cosmopolitanism (aview which significantly differs from Miller’s), see Valentini (2011b,49–55).

21But if I am the only person who can save Charles at reasonablecosts, why not say that he has a right to be saved by me, hence myduty is one of justice (cf. Gilabert 2010, 394–95)? This is a temptingconclusion, but I want to resist it. By saving Charles, I am actingout of a duty to help those in need at reasonable cost, namely a dutyof charity or beneficence. There are rare circumstances in whichthe content of the duty is more determinate than others. In suchcircumstances, the duty will have the appearance of one of justice,but its ground will still be charity or beneficence.

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a right. Since bad luck and others’ failure to abide by dutiesof justice may undermine persons’ autonomy conditions,morality also demands that we come to their aid when wecan do so at reasonable costs: these demands correspondto duties of charity. As I have suggested elsewhere, dutiesof justice and duties of charity can be helpfully seen asimplications of the fundamental demand of equal respect(Valentini 2011b, 180–81).22 On this view, to respect per-sons qua autonomous agents, we ought to both refrainfrom undermining their autonomy conditions and helpthem when we can do so without too much sacrifice. Thegreater stringency of duties of justice with respect to dutiesof charity is explained by the greater involvement of ouragency in others’ predicament.23 We have a duty of justiceto assist others—i.e., we owe them assistance—if we areresponsible for their plight by having undermined theirautonomy conditions (or are bound by special relationsto assist them—a case which, as I said in the introduction,I do not consider in the present article).24 By contrast, ifour agency is not involved in their plight, we have dutiesof charity to help them at reasonable costs.

This proposed formulation of the existence condi-tions of justice (and charity) is very broad, and a lot hingeson how exactly we interpret each of its component parts.In particular, to determine what justice exactly requires,we need an account of (1) the notion of autonomy condi-

22The autonomy view further develops, and offers an alternativeframing to, my overall liberal outlook on justice, as articulated inValentini (2011a, 2011b, chap. 6). Central to these works is whatI called the “coercion view.” On this view, demands of justice aretriggered by coercive dynamics (which always involve nontrivialrestrictions of freedom), whether interactional (perpetrated by in-dividual or group agents) or systemic (the product of nonagentialsystems of rules). As I have argued in Valentini (2011a, 2011b),thinking about justice from the perspective of the coercion viewallows us to steer a middle course between cosmopolitan (globalegalitarian) and statist (global sufficientarian/assistance-based) ac-counts of global justice. The present article offers an alternativedefense of this broadly liberal outlook (in the form of the auton-omy view) and brings it to bear on the question of the nature ofour duties in the case of disaster relief.

23The predicament in question has to be the same across the relevantcases. Otherwise, we would reach the problematic conclusion that,say, our duty to pay a small debt towards a wealthy banker is morestringent than our duty to save a starving man. On this importantproviso, see Pogge (2002, 132 and 2005, 76).

24Some might wonder how the autonomy view—which sets outnecessary and sufficient existence conditions of duties of justice—accounts for positive duties of justice arising from special relations.Here is a quick explanation of how this works. For instance, theduty not to breach a valid contract can be ultimately traced to ourduty not to undermine others’ autonomy conditions. A system ofcontracts is needed for people to form reliable expectations aboutone another’s behavior, which is in turn necessary for them tolead autonomous lives. Undermining contracts, or other types oflegitimate expectations based on special relations, undermine otherparties’ autonomy conditions.

tions and (2) the circumstances under which a person hasthe ability to refrain from undermining such conditions.In what follows, I discuss each of them in turn and then(3) explain what my view shares with, and how it differsfrom, competing outlooks on justice.

Autonomy Conditions

What conditions have to be met for a person to be ableto lead an autonomous life? A person’s ability to pursueher ends and goals clearly depends on her mental andphysical health as well as on the resources available to her(cf. Raz 1986, chap. 14). While, in specific cases, one’smental and physical health may be independent of so-cial factors (think about genetically caused disabilities), aperson’s capacity for autonomy is generally dependent onthe social conditions in which she finds herself. The socialgoods a person commands—including liberties, wealth,opportunities, services, and so forth.—are crucial deter-minants of her ability to lead an autonomous life. Buthow should such goods be distributed for each personto be in a position to pursue her ends and goals, i.e., foreach to enjoy the autonomy conditions? There are at leasttwo broad answers to this question (cf. Valentini 2011b,173–78).

First, on a sufficientarian account of the autonomyconditions, a person is in a position to lead an au-tonomous life if, and only if, she has “enough” goodsor resources, such as access to nutrition, shelter, healthcare, sanitation, and a decent set of opportunities. Fromthe perspective of this account, the fact that other peoplewithin my social context have access to better opportuni-ties than me, or have more material resources with whichto pursue their life plans, has no impact on my own abil-ity to pursue my ends and goals. On this view, Bill Gatesand a reasonably well-paid shop assistant both enjoy theautonomy conditions.

Second, on egalitarian or relational accounts of theautonomy conditions, a person’s ability to pursue herends and goals crucially depends on how other peopleare faring, beyond a sufficiency threshold. There are atleast two versions of this view. One ties social inequal-ities to self-respect and claims that the socially disad-vantaged lack the necessary self-respect to act as fullyautonomous agents (Rawls 1971). The other holds thatinequalities ought to be limited because they are con-ducive to relationships of social dependence. In the pres-ence of steep social inequalities, so the argument goes, themore powerful are likely to dominate the less privilegedand thereby to undermine their capacity for autonomy(cf. Anderson 1999; Pettit 1997).

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Of course, we can identify a vast array of positionsboth within and between the sufficientarian and egalitar-ian camps. Mapping out all the possible specifications ofwhat it takes to be able to lead an autonomous life is a taskthat goes well beyond the scope of this article. In fact, thattask corresponds to the elaboration of a full-blown theoryof justice. What matters is that any plausible account ofsuch conditions will include protections for the follow-ing interests: life, bodily integrity, freedom of movementand thought, shelter, education, nutrition, sanitation, andhealth care. This is all we need to assume for present pur-poses (cf. Griffin 2008).

The Ability to Refrain from UnderminingOthers’ Autonomy Conditions

What does it take for someone to have the ability to refrainfrom undermining others’ autonomy? Two conditions, Iargue, have to be met: the foreseeability condition and thecontrol condition.25

Foreseeability condition: Agents must be able toanticipate the effects of their actions.

If I cannot anticipate whether my actions are goingto undermine your ability to lead an autonomous life, Icannot make sure that they won’t. This means that, even ifI do undermine it, I do not violate any duty. For example, Ican be causally responsible for harming you—say becauseI have given you food to which you are allergic—withoutbeing morally responsible for it—because I could not haveknown about your allergy. In this case, I harm you, butI do not wrong you: I do not violate any duty. My moral(as opposed to physical) agency is not genuinely involvedin causing this harm. From a moral point of view, then,this harm is no different from a harm caused by naturalforces outside human control.

Control condition: Agents must be able to controltheir actions.

The control condition is also relatively straightfor-ward. If “my” actions are part of a causal chain of eventsthat result in my undermining others’ ability to lead au-tonomous lives, but I have no control over them, I donot violate any duties. For instance, if I suffer from an

25Cf. Pogge’s (2005) claim, to which my view is indebted, thatglobal poverty partly stems from a violation of our duty not toharm, because it is “foreseeably and avoidably” produced by aglobal economic order we support.

untreatable bodily spasm that often causes me involun-tarily to hit people, I can be said to harm them, but not towrong them. It is certainly bad that I hit others, but it isnot a moral wrong: so long as the relevant actions are notunder my control, they are not expressions of my agency.

Duties of justice therefore only exist when the fore-seeability and control conditions are fully satisfied. Whenis it plausible to assume that they are? My hypothesis isthat these conditions can be fully satisfied only in societalsettings. In a pure state of nature, without any coordi-nation mechanisms, formal or de facto rules allocatingentitlements to resources, and shared understandings onthe basis of which resources can be intersubjectively val-ued,26 nobody can anticipate or control how her actions,combined with those of others, will affect persons’ abil-ity to lead autonomous lives. In such a lawless scenario,the duty not to undermine others’ autonomy conditionswould have a very restricted reach. Arguably, its demandswould reduce to refraining from physically injuringothers.

This state of affairs is of course a limiting case, soremoved from the circumstances of ordinary human ex-istence to be extremely hard to picture. In fact, I sus-pect that our understanding of what it is to be a humanagent, and to lead an autonomous life, is so bound upwith our identities as social beings that coherently askingabout justice against a nonsocial background is almostimpossible.

That said, we can think of different hypothetical stagesof human existence along a continuum, from a pure stateof nature, where the foreseeability and control condi-tions are satisfied only for a very minimal set of dutiesagainst physical injury, to a full-blown (political-legal)state. Different demands of justice will correspond to dif-ferent stages along this spectrum, depending on what canbe reasonably expected of people living under the relevantcircumstances. The more we move away from a pure stateof nature towards a social condition, the more complexthe demands of the duty not to undermine others’ auton-omy conditions become, because the range of what we canforesee and control expands. That is, the existence of so-cial rules and institutions makes a difference to our dutiesof justice—i.e., it widens their scope—because it rendersforeseeable what used to be unforeseeable, and feasiblewhat used to be infeasible (cf. Gilabert 2009, 677).

In a social condition, human beings (usually) havethe epistemic tools to establish whether the patterns ofconduct and social rules actually governing their relationsare compatible with the demands of justice. They canestablish whether their social organization respects each

26Cf. Miller’s (2005) “metric” critique of global egalitarianism.

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person’s right to pursue her ends and goals. When it doesnot, namely when some people lack the necessary socialconditions to lead autonomous lives, justice requires themto reform existing social rules or to coordinate to createnew institutions capable of governing their interactionsin accordance with justice. Without institutions explicitlydesigned to allocate duties and responsibilities, justice isunlikely ever to be realized. From this perspective, states,for instance, are vehicles through which individuals whorecurrently interact with one another can discharge dutiesof justice that already apply to them (see Young 2006; cf.Ronzoni 2009 and Kant [1797] 1991).

Even though in a social condition it is still true thatno single individual can control global outcomes, differentindividuals have different degrees of control over them,depending on the particular place they occupy in thesocial structure. While in a tyrannical society the tyrantpresumably bears most of the responsibility for persons’(in)ability to lead autonomous lives, in a genuinely demo-cratic one, such responsibilities are more evenly sharedacross the demos (Young 2006).

These differences notwithstanding, the point is thatto act—either directly or indirectly via social rules—inways that result in some people lacking the necessary con-ditions to lead autonomous lives is to violate the demandsof justice (cf. Pogge 2002). In turn, duties of justice areparticularly stringent because they concern our contri-bution to others’ inability to pursue their ends and goals.This explains why, while we tend to regard our duties to-wards those who are in need through no fault of our ownas a matter of charity, we think they are entitled to com-pensation on our part if we have contributed to causingtheir predicament.

The Virtues of the Autonomy View

My view captures the virtues of the agent-based, recipient-based, and mixed views without reproducing their vices.In particular, like proponents of the agent-based view, Ihave argued that certain types of social rules are a nec-essary existence condition of some demands of justice,insofar as they allow us to anticipate, and control, thejoint consequences of our actions. I have also argued,contrary to the agent-based view, and in line with itsrecipient-based counterpart, that the presence of institu-tions explicitly designed to secure persons’ ability to leadautonomous lives is a necessary instrumental conditionfor the realization of the demands of justice (Abizadeh2007). Moreover, like proponents of the mixed view, Itake considerations about responsibility to be relevant tothe distinction between justice and charity. Unlike themixed view, however, the autonomy view does not suffer

from a lack of systematicity. The way responsibility mat-ters to it is both consistent and transparent: we have dutiesof justice towards others in need whenever our agency isinvolved in their plight, and duties of charity when it isnot.

Moreover, even though the autonomy view clearlybelongs to a broad family of liberal approaches to justicedeveloped by other scholars, it is not strictly identical toany of them, and it helps us illuminate some of their nor-mative underpinnings. For instance, although reminis-cent of Mill’s harm principle and Kant’s universal right tofreedom, the autonomy view differs from, and improveson, these traditional liberal outlooks by rejecting the as-sumption that duties of justice must always be perfect (cf.the section on the agent-based view).

In addition, thanks to its generality, the view can beseen as providing a broad schema from which prominentcontemporary liberal accounts of justice can be derivedas special cases. For instance, Rawls’s (1971) theory ofjustice can be read as a domestic application of the auton-omy view under an egalitarian account of the autonomyconditions. For Rawls, a society is unjust unless liber-ties, opportunities, income, and wealth are distributedroughly equally across citizens. When state institutionsfail to meet these egalitarian standards, some citizens lackthe necessary conditions to lead autonomous lives andare therefore victims of social injustice. They are wrongedby their fellow citizens whose joint agency is channeledthrough social rules and institutions. Similarly, Pogge’s(2002) approach to human rights can be seen as a globalapplication of the autonomy view under a sufficientar-ian account of the autonomy conditions. For Pogge, thewealthy of the world are violating the rights of the poorby imposing a global institutional structure that causestheir deprivation.

In so saying I am not suggesting that these promi-nent liberal theorists would necessarily agree with thisinterpretation of their views.27 All I am claiming is thattheir views can be helpfully recast as special cases ofthe autonomy-based account, thereby giving them moretransparent normative foundations.

Finally, a further advantage of the autonomy view isthat it can help us answer questions about the nature ofour duties of justice in the absence of formal institutionalstructures. While Rawls’s and Pogge’s theories presup-pose, and can therefore only be applied to, institutionalarrangements, the autonomy view enables us to reflectabout justice across a wide range of circumstances, from

27In particular, I suspect that some liberal theorists would find theview too restrictive, since it states necessary and sufficient existenceconditions for duties of justice.

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preinstitutional to institutional. This allows the view tooffer a coherent account of the double normative roleof social rules and institutions: as existence conditionsof some duties of justice as well as instruments to theirrealization. An ability to account for demands of justicewhen there are no institutions capable of fulfilling themappears particularly important when debating moral is-sues in the international context, where such institutionsby and large do not exist.

Back to Haiti, New Zealand, andJapan

What are the implications of my arguments for theclaim that, unlike Japan and New Zealand, Haiti is owedfirst and foremost justice rather than charity? All threecountries have been hit by natural disasters, and fromour discussion we have learned that natural disasters, perse, do not constitute injustices. The duty to help a soci-ety hit by a natural disaster is relevantly similar to theduty to rescue someone who has accidentally fallen into alake and risks drowning. Bystanders who can help at rea-sonable costs certainly ought to intervene, but their dutywould be one of charity, not one of justice. No relevantdisanalogy would therefore seem to exist between Haiti,Japan, and New Zealand. Portions of their inhabitantsfind themselves in need due to natural disasters, and gov-ernments and citizens of other countries who can help atreasonable costs have a duty of charity to do so.

This telling of the story depicts the world as an inno-cent bystander with respect to the plights of Haiti, NewZealand, and Japan. But there are reasons for doubtingthat this rendering of the facts is correct. Although theseearthquakes themselves were natural events outside hu-man control, their more-or-less devastating effects were,at least partly, man-made. In Japan’s case, arguably therewould have been no nuclear crisis, or at least a smallerone, had the government and electricity company TEPCOadopted more cautious policies regarding nuclear energyand/or better handled the disaster (cf. Tatsumi 2011). Inthe case of New Zealand, had certain buildings been morerobust, or had they adhered to higher safety standards,part of the tragedy could have perhaps been avoided (BBC2011c).28 In both New Zealand and Japan, then, humanagency is at least partly involved in the earthquake’s catas-trophic consequences, but the agents in question are, byand large, “domestic” ones. Their involvement makes no

28See http://canterbury.royalcommission.govt.nz/ (accessed June20, 2012).

difference to the responsibility of outsiders, of the worldat large.

Haiti’s case appears different. The country was al-ready extremely poor and vulnerable prior to the earth-quake, but it seems difficult to attribute responsibility forthis poverty and vulnerability entirely to its own peo-ple. This is precisely what the critics of the charity-basedapproach to Haiti’s plight argue. They emphasize howHaiti’s extreme poverty, which has made the impact ofthe earthquake all the more tragic (recall hundreds ofthousands died), has to a good extent been the productof other states’ past aggressive conduct.29 As one criticargues, “Haiti’s vulnerability to natural disasters, its foodshortages, poverty, deforestation and lack of infrastruc-ture, are not accidental. To say that it is the poorest nationin the Western hemisphere is to miss the point; Haiti, itis complained, was made poor—by France, the UnitedStates, Great Britain, other Western powers and by theIMF and the World Bank” (Kim 2010; cf. Chomsky 2004,who advances similar remarks, especially in relation tothe United States, and Isaacs 2010).30

As critics emphasize, the poverty and vulnerability ofHaiti are rooted in its history. After a long period spent un-der French colonial domination, Haitian slaves’ fight forfreedom came to a successful end in 1804 (Danner 2010;Von Tunzelmann 2009). In return for its independence,however, Haiti was forced to pay an exorbitant amountin reparations to its former colonizer, France. In the pro-cess of paying these reparations, Haiti borrowed fundsfrom Germany, France, and the United States, therebybecoming heavily indebted (Oxfam 2010). To ensure thatit would repay its debt, the United States eventually oc-cupied Haiti in 1915 and from then on continued to beinvolved in the country’s affairs, often pursuing its owneconomic and strategic interests (Buschschluter 2010).By the time Haiti had finished paying its reparations (af-ter World War II), it had become a deeply impoverishednation, plagued by political instability, poverty, and cor-ruption.

In more recent years, international lending institu-tions such as the World Bank and the IMF offered loansto Haiti, but on the condition that it would liberalize itseconomy. While economic liberalization can be benefi-cial for advanced industrialized nations, it is particularlyrisky for societies such as Haiti, whose economy is weakand therefore unlikely to withstand the pressures of globalcompetition. For example, the IMF severely undermined

29Of course, at least a good portion of responsibility plausibly fallson Haiti’s elites, on its ruthless leaders and dictators, and possiblyon deprived Haitian citizens themselves.

30For a detailed history of Haiti, see Coupeau (2007).

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Haiti’s economy when, in 1995, it forced Haiti to open itsmarkets to cheap (subsidized) rice from the United States,thereby preventing it from protecting its own agriculturalindustry (Oxfam 2008; Kim 2010; Isaacs 2010).

Of course, there are many historical complexities thatI cannot discuss in this article. But if the facts I havereported are correct, it follows that Haiti’s tragedy results,at least to some extent, from a failure on the part ofothers to honor the duty not to undermine Haitians’autonomy conditions. First, Haiti has been the victim ofrapacious behavior on the part of other societies—Franceand the United States in particular.31 This behavior clearlyrepresented a breach of duties of justice that deprivedHaiti’s people of the necessary social conditions to leadautonomous lives (on any plausible account of what suchconditions entail).

Second, global rules of financial and trade liberaliza-tion have been imposed upon Haiti. Given its poverty anddestitution (and particularly its desperate need for finan-cial support from the IMF and the World Bank), arguablyHaiti was not in a position to subtract itself from suchrules. Participation in these institutions was nonvolun-tary. In fact, one might even argue that, in some sense,the very powers that control these institutions are alsothose that originally put Haiti into a position of depen-dence and vulnerability by “making it poor” (cf. Pogge’s2002, 199–204, similar but broader claims about the rela-tionship between the global wealthy and the global poor).

In light of this, it makes sense to say that the interna-tional community’s duties towards Haiti (or at least theduties of a large portion of this community) go beyondcharity: part of the devastating impact of the earthquakeis the result of injustice carried out by outsiders, not bynature itself. Notwithstanding the importance of dutiesof charity, the autonomy view seems to vindicate the crit-ics’ complaint. They are right to emphasize that the focusshould be on what Haiti is owed, rather than on what thewealthy of the world can generously contribute to alle-viating its plight. Moreover, to the extent that outsiders’involvement in the tragedies of Japan and New Zealand isfar smaller, it is also true that “the world’s” duties towardsthem are primarily a matter of charity.32

31In a sense, this is also true of other nations that recognized thelegitimacy first of French dominion and subsequently of France’srequest for reparations.

32One point of clarification. This is not to say that outsiders haveabsolutely nothing to do with Japan’s and New Zealand’s plight. Inan increasingly globalized world, this would be hard to establish.But whatever outsider involvement is present in the cases of Japanand New Zealand, this seems negligible compared to the case ofHaiti. This, in turn, means that even though duties of justice cannotbe categorically excluded in the cases of Japan and New Zealand,they are not as prominent as in the case of Haiti.

Of course, it is close to impossible to calculate inadvance what exactly Haiti is owed by what countries (orindividuals) in particular. This requires detailed factualinformation—which I am in no position to provide inthis article—and coordination between the relevant dutybearers. But recall that, on the autonomy view (unlikeon the agent-based view), this fact is no challenge to theclaim that Haitians are appropriate recipients of duties ofjustice. Duty bearers’ current failure to put in place theinstitutional structures and allocation mechanisms thatwould allow them to fulfill their obligations and honorHaitians’ entitlements is grounds for criticizing them, notfor getting them off the “justice hook.” Moreover, evenif precise allocation is a complex matter, our analysis stillallows us plausibly to conclude that some of the reliefeffort in Haiti is not a display of great generosity but atardy and inevitably suboptimal attempt to give its peoplewhat they are owed (cf. Barry 1991).

Conclusion

Many of our fellow humans often fall victim to naturalcatastrophes. Whenever this happens, we have duties toassist them. However, it makes a difference whether ourduties are a matter of charity or a more stringent matter ofjustice. In this article, I have defended a particular accountof the conditions under which our duties towards those inneed are based on justice: “the autonomy view.” On thisview, we have duties of justice towards the needy when ouragency has contributed to their plight (assuming no otherspecial relations—such as treaties of mutual help—are inplace) and duties of charity when our “hands are clean”but we can still help them at reasonable costs. I have thenapplied this view to the cases of disaster relief in Haiti,New Zealand, and Japan and concluded that while thelatter are appropriately seen as recipients of internationalcharity, Haiti is primarily owed justice due to outsiders’contribution to its plight.

At this point, a skeptic might contest the factualclaims on which this conclusion is based, suggesting thatHaiti’s misery is fully endogenous. Even if this claim weretrue, the main contribution of this article would remainunaffected by it. My aim has been to provide a standardfor evaluating when our duties to assist the needy area matter of justice as opposed to one of charity. I haveshown that our answer to this question rests on a par-ticular class of facts concerning the involvement of ouragency in others’ plight. The point of the standard is notto ascertain what the facts are in any specific circum-stance (this is the job of empirical research) but rather

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to identify what class of facts are relevant to normativeassessments. My conclusions about Haiti, New Zealand,and Japan are based on what strikes me as a prima facieplausible account of the relevant facts. However, such anaccount can be challenged without thereby underminingthe autonomy view.

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