The Journal of Global Ethics after Twenty Years

The Journal of Global Ethics has now reached its twentieth year. In this editorial for issue 20(1) we look back at those two decades of work. In addition, we introduce three full-length papers, including two on climate ethics and one on transnational solidarity in feminist practice, and the first of this year’s three sets of short reflection papers that are intended to suggest some possible areas and bases for work in the coming years.

The present issue marks also the start of a new editorial team, consisting of Des Gasper, Vandra Harris Agisilaou and Thomas Wells. We all joined the journal in the second half of 2022 or the start of 2023, as part of a planned transition, and have introduced ourselves in the editorials of issues 18(3) or 19(1). The previous team of editors, who have guided us into the editorial systems and who continued their work through to the end of 2023, has consisted of Eric Palmer, who served for just over ten years, Christine Koggel, who served for just over five years, and Lori Keleher, who has had to step down after just over two years because of overwhelming commitments and challenges elsewhere. We wish to use this editorial in part to acknowledge the great contributions made by the outgoing editors, and especially those by Eric and Christine over many years.

The previous issue of the journal, 19(3), exemplified the work of each outgoing editor. It was an extra-large issue of 220 pages made up of three special sections. One section was a collection on ‘The Ethics of Border Controls in a Digital Age’, edited by Natasha Saunders and Alex Sager, guided by Eric Palmer; a second was an ‘Author meets Critics’ set, on Monique Deveaux’s recent book Poverty, Solidarity, and Poor-Led Social Movements, guided by Christine Koggel; and third was a selection of papers from the International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) 2022 conference in Medellin, Colombia, edited by Alejandra Boni, Melanie Walker and Diane Velasco, and guided by Lori Keleher. Each of these sections reflected a particular feature that has been characteristic of Journal of Global Ethics across the past two decades; respectively: an emphasis on investigating problems of global ethics generated by real-world developments and choices, not generated only or primarily within intra-disciplinary academic debates; secondly, continuous close attention at the same time to new theorizing, for example through regular ‘Author meets Critics’ sections and other book symposia; and thirdly, space for special issues and special sections arising from particular research events, projects and associations.

Issue 19(3) did not, given its exceptional size, include an editorial. Typically, though, JGE has since its inception often included extensive editorials that have tried to comment on and contribute to the emergence and evolution of the field(s) of global ethics. From the current vantage point when the full editorial team has now changed, the present editorial essay looks at the development and continuities of the journal across its two decades.

JGE published its first issue in 2005. The three founding editors, all then at the University of Birmingham (UK)’s young centre for global ethics, continued together for many years, establishing a strong basis and identity for the journal. Sirkku Hellsten conceived the journal, was lead editor during 2005 and continued as an editor through to her death in 2018, including for many years while working in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and finally in Sweden. (An obituary was published in Issue 14(1).) Christien van den Anker was an editor from 2005 through 2013, including as lead editor for 2006, 2007 and 2010–13; Heather Widdows was an editor from 2005 through 2012 and lead editor for 2008 and 2009. At the end of 2013 Eric Palmer joined Sirkku Hellsten as editor. The team was renewed by the arrival of Martin Schönfeld for 2017 to 2020, of Christine Koggel in 2018, and of Lori Keleher in 2021. The most recent departures and arrivals have been mentioned above.

In addition to relatively strong continuity in the editorial team both in the early years and later, we can observe that the journal has been marked by the following features:

1. An interest in characterizing and influencing the field of global ethics, to make it more truly global and not only an adaptation of the intra-national ethics developed in liberal capitalist societies

2. Interfacing of a range of disciplines and theoretical orientations

3. Much attention to real-world problems and, especially in the first decade, to interfacing with practice and practitioners

4. A welcoming and supportive relationship to potential contributors

5. A willingness to periodically attempt to highlight certain global challenges and to suggest agendas for work.

We look back here at each of these aspects, often drawing on observations in earlier editorials, as well as commenting on and adding to those.

Nature of the field of global ethics and its challenges

The very first JGE editorial (in Issue 1(1), 2005) announced the aim to establish:

an international and interdisciplinary scholarly journal concerned with ethical issues arising in the global context. The purpose of this Journal is to promote the study of global ethics by encouraging examination of the wide variety of ethical issues that arise in the context of globalisation and international relations. The Journal provides a forum for the analysis of ethics and values and their relationship to globalisation, international relations, politics and development, engaging particularly in debates on global justice. (1)

This characterisation remains relevant. At the same time, there has been ongoing thinking on the nature of the field and the issues that should be tackled. A couple of years later in 2007, for example, the guest editorial for issue 3(2) by M.S. Ronald Commers, Wim Vandekerckhove and An Verlinden added this: ‘Global ethics we understood to be broader than any single issue, theme or discipline. Hence, global ethics also includes reflection on ethics under the condition of globalisation, or as Nigel Dower would call it: the globalisation of ethics.’ (139).

The journal has published a considerable range of perspectives, certainly not only a single style of thought. One recurrent theme, nevertheless, argued in several editorials and many articles, was the insufficiency and often inadequacy of dominant liberal nationalist accounts in global ethics. Already in the second issue (1(2)), Gillian Brock's article ‘What Do We Owe Co-nationals and Non-nationals?’ argued that the liberal nationalist account of our obligations to non-nationals fails and so it offered an alternative. The editorial in the following issue (2006–2(1)) encouraged attention to ‘alternative approaches to the liberal democratic views of cosmopolitanism’; and an editorial the year after that (2007 – issue 3(3)) highlighted ‘the [critical] concern of theorists with the Euro-centrism and Realism in dominant liberal thought as well as the need for engaging with practices [not only doctrines]’ (279). It highlighted an article in that issue (Adar Avsar 2007), that proposed that, in the editorial’s words, ‘Realist and liberal understandings of ethics[, which have been] the dominant approaches to ethics in international relations[,] are unable to respond efficiently to the call of the other … as they revolve around the needs and the interests of the self. Such self-centred understandings of ethics cannot respond to the other ethically and respect the other in its otherness’ (Editorial 2007, 280).

In recent years, many papers have articulated and explored some of these and related concerns. A 2020 editorial (vol. 16(1)) for which Christine Koggel was lead author offered this statement.

Whether through accounts of global ethics, cosmopolitanism, communitarianism, care ethics, or the capabilities approach, work over the past several decades by contemporary moral and political theorists has challenged early liberal theory with its focus on individual liberty rights. These rights emerged from accounts of what individuals are like and of what they are owed that, in turn, were taken to ground justifications for constitutions, institutions, structures, or principles designed to uphold and respect those rights. These accounts … generated criticisms of them as Western and Eurocentric framings narrowly focused upon individual liberty and as inaccurate or incoherent accounts of human beings, relationships, and communities. Accounts by communitarians, virtue ethicists, capability theorists, care ethicists, relational theorists, and theorists who develop accounts of human needs and our responsibilities to meet those needs all emerge as alternatives … Many of the articles in this issue start from a rejection of the idea that frameworks of rights versus responsibilities, cosmopolitanism versus communitarianism, justice theory versus virtue or care ethics, negative rights versus positive rights, individualism versus relationality, and ideal versus non-ideal theory are diametrically opposed. (Koggel, Palmer, and Schönfeld 2020, 1)

In other words, combinations of those accounts and frameworks are considered justifiable and indeed sensible. Further:

Accounts of responsibilities reflect the move from ideal theory and universal principles to contexts within which responsibilities to others are created and require responses. Accounts of responsibility thereby highlight the failure of cosmopolitan or global ethics to shape or motivate agents who will act and respond to the needs of those across the globe. The upshot has been that attempts to capture duties and obligations to human beings on the basis of features shared by all, no matter where they live in the world, may not succeed in motivating us to be the kind of agents who take responsibility for responding to the needs of those who suffer injustices, inequalities, and oppression more generally. (Koggel, Palmer, and Schönfeld 2020, 2)

The editorial commended papers that ‘ground their examination of rights and responsibilities in the real-world context of injustices in a global context … ’ (3). Such real-world grounding of analyses is discussed further in a later section in the present editorial. Before that, we look some more at efforts seen in the journal to extend the range of theoretical resources used in global ethics.

Enlargement, enrichment, and partnerships of the range of theoretical perspectives and tools in global ethics

A 2017 editorial observed that:

In this issue [13(2)] … , we have given space to both critique of the cosmopolitan traditional approach to global justice and different cultural approaches to this dialogue. In our fragmented world, we may not be able to find a universally applicable approach to the issues of global ethics and global justice, and we may be better off looking for ways to bring closer together approaches and value frameworks that initially may seem incompatible but upon reflection turn out to respect the same or similar values.

The editorial highlighted, for example, Chimakonam’s paper in that issue in defence of contributions by African philosophers (Chimakonam 2017). It considered though that while ‘there is a way to bring different cultural and religious ethical frameworks closer together … [, ironically], despite its universalistic foundations, the cosmopolitan approach, if left unqualified, appears to fail at such rapprochement, due to its abstract nature and rejection [in practice] of truly open intercultural dialogue’ (Hellsten, Schönfeld, and Palmer 2017, 116).

A 2015 section in Issue 11(1), on ‘Global ethics as theory and practice’, guest-edited by Matti Häyry and Tuija Takala, commented further on such dialogues. Their editorial highlighted a paper by Sirkku Hellsten in that section (Hellsten 2015) and remarked that:

Proponents of the ‘more concrete’ global values draw attention to the biased and imperialistic ways in which Westerners actually conduct themselves in other cultures, and claim that this is evidence of the wrongness of their values. Hellsten, however, believes that the universal values advocated by Western philosophy could be sensibly applied to global issues, if only more attention were paid to differences in local beliefs and practices. (Häyry and Takala 2015, 65–66)

Many special issues and special sections in JGE have essayed dialogues across cultural and intellectual traditions. To mention some of these:

• A special issue on ‘Critical Theory and the Language of Violence’ (2010–6(2)), edited by Vivienne Boon and Naomi Head, both employed ideas from Habermas and associates and suggested limits of discourse ethics in regard to fundamentalism.

• A special issue on Climate Ethics (2011–7(2)), edited by Martin Schönfeld, included papers on thinking in Canada, Japan and Latin America, a paper from China on Daoist thought, and a paper from Taiwan on Confucian thought.

• A special issue by a group of Indian authors was entitled ‘Indian Global Ethics Initiative’ (2019–15(1)), edited by Shashi Motilal and Jay Drydyk.

• An ‘Author Meets Critics’ section in Issue 16(3), 2020, discussed Serene Khader’s Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic.

• A special issue on China and Global Development (2021–17(1)) was edited by Martin Schönfeld and Xiao Ouyang (and guided to completion by Eric Palmer due to Martin’s health crisis and death). It included an introduction by Xiao subtitled ‘a revival of cosmopolitanism in a Chinese cultural disguise?’ and for example an invited article by Zhao Tingyang, author of The Tianxia System: An Introduction to the Philosophy of a World Institution.

• A 2021 special issue (17(2)) considered the work of Louis-Joseph Lebret and his school from the 1930s onwards that enriched Catholic social thinking by deep engagements with economics, with Marxism, and with local and national development planning in France, Brazil, Colombia, Lebanon, Senegal and elsewhere, and that laid part of the basis for Catholic reorientation in the postcolonial world.

• A recent special issue edited by Christine Koggel, Ami Harbin and Jennifer J. Llewellyn (2022, 18(1)) addressed ‘Relational Theory: Feminist Approaches, Implications, and Applications’.

We invite proposals for further such work.

A 2013 special issue, ‘Critical Approaches to Global Justice: At the Frontier’, edited by Monique Deveaux and Kathryn Walker (vol. 9(2)), illustrates the potential of such sets of papers for enlarging and enriching theoretical bases in global ethics. Their Introduction argued that:

Important as [the work on global distributive justice] has been, however, the distributive framework has certain limits which the papers collected here aim to challenge and ultimately move beyond. … Instead of the usual focus on North-South redistribution of resources, [and ‘the belief that justice is wholly reducible to material redistribution’] the papers … critically engaged problems of power, agency, and authority in the context of North-South inequality and injustice. … In moving towards a reconceptualization of global justice, the very concept of justice becomes disaggregated. … This special issue … also challenges a central assumption of much mainstream theorizing about global justice, namely, that relations of justice chiefly concern individuals, and should aim to ensure fairness or equity between essentially separate individuals. (Deveaux and Walker 2013, 111–112)

Similarly, a paper in that set, ‘Revising global theories of justice to include public goods’ by Heather Widdows and Peter G.N. West-Oram, argued that (as summarized in the issue’s Introduction):

global justice theorists have tended to neglect the importance of securing collective, public goods as a bulwark against poverty, inequality and other pressing problems. This is in part because they build upon ‘domestic’ theories of justice and continue those theories’ focus on individuals rather than groups. (Widdows and West-Oram 2013, 112)

A later paper by King and Blake (2018, in issue 14(3)) followed a related line, going beyond the typical limitation in global ethics work to considering individuals and/or nations, by considering also cities, seen as ‘associative terrains’.

Interfacing philosophy, social sciences, humanities, current affairs, and practice

From volume 2 onwards, the journal has expressed a commitment to reflection on current events and practices, and thereby an insistence on the need to interface philosophy with social sciences and practical disciplines. The editorial for Issue 2(1) (2006) declared that: ‘Global ethics is and should be a field that includes a normative perspective yet is based in the context of trying to change current practice. It ranges from work at its most abstract in contributions from philosophy on the one hand to the practice of activists on the other hand.’ (1). The following issue (2006–2(2)) was devoted to Women’s Rights in Europe; the next (2007–3(1)) was described in the editorial as ‘widening the debate by including other perspectives than international relations or philosophy and by raising more issues than only global justice between contemporaries’ (1), and included for example a paper on adoption and one on corruption; while the editorial for 2008’s Issue 4(2) construed ‘the impetus for the discipline [of global ethics as]: … the wish to connect theoretical understandings and analysis directly to activist and policy campaigns in order to strengthen the calls for global justice embodied in [for example] the Jubilee 2000 and Make Poverty History campaigns’ (89).

The world moves on, agendas evolve, and editorial teams change. However, in 2014 the then new editorial team reiterated that ‘We hope that Journal of Global Ethics will provide a channel for material that engages theory with global events and processes, [and/or] engages theory with local detailed case studies, and with cross-cultural thought’ (editorial for issue 10(2)). We firmly endorse this.

In the seventh year of the journal, an editorial by Christien van den Anker (vol. 7(3), 2011) remarked that:

the field of Global Ethics is developing into more intricate fusions with ethical assessments in a wide variety of fields and disciplines. For example, this issue includes an article on management ethics reflecting on Chinese philosophy alongside a piece [on] research ethics in medical trials involving African case studies. The diversity of this issue, combining tourism ethics, climate ethics and articles on exploitation and duties to relieve poverty, illustrates further that the field is growing. (van den Anker 2011, 219)

Correspondingly, the editorial in an earlier issue (2008–4(1)) had listed a series of areas in which the journal welcomed articles and special issues, stressing case studies as well as theorization. This listing too remains relevant, though it is far from exhaustive:

… we would encourage submissions on the theory, practice and policy of human rights and international political discourse and law, economic, social and cultural rights and justice, as well as specific case studies of ethics and values in the context of globalization and theorizing about global citizenship and the mechanisms, processes and institutions relevant to global ethics. (1)

The scope implied, involving an interweaving of philosophy, social sciences, and other disciplines, and addressing challenges in politics, policy and practice, can be further conveyed by mentioning various past issues of the journal:

• Issue 4(3) in 2008 was a special issue on development ethics, derived from an International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) conference at Makerere University in Uganda. A Preface by Thomas Pogge argued that ‘the widespread tendency [by authors both in Africa and in rich countries] to focus attention away from factors that one can influence and toward factors over which one has little or no control … is itself a major factor in the persistence and growth of extreme poverty and underdevelopment in Africa’ (Pogge 2008, 176). Pogge presented the special issue as an attempt to counteract this bias.

• Selected papers from a 2018 IDEA conference in Bordeaux published in Issue 15(2), 2019, explored the theme of alliances (Ballet, Malavisi, and Parrot 2019).

• Issue 11(2) in 2015 was a special issue on ‘Moral Economy: New Perspectives, Classic Debates’, edited by Katarina Friberg and Norbert Götz, derived from a research project in Sweden that sought ‘a framework for analysing how altruistic meaning is constructed’ (Friberg and Götz 2015, 144). It contained both applications to international aid and humanitarian action and strong attention to conceptual clarification and conceptual plurality regarding ‘moral economy’. Issue 12(2) in 2016 similarly was on altruism and humanitarian intervention, and included also a Symposium with assessments of Peter Singer’s book The Most Good You Can Do.

• Issue 12(3) in 2016 was a special issue on ‘Refugee Crisis: The Borders of Human Mobility’; Issue 13(3) in 2017 had a guest-edited section on world government; Issue 14(1) in 2018 was a special issue on Education and Migration, Issue 14(2) from 2018 a Special Issue on Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice, and Issue 15(3) from 2019 a Special Issue on Global Justice and Childhood.

It was easier here to mention special issues and special sections rather than individual articles, but those too have reflected the broad range and characteristics that were highlighted above. Again, we invite proposals for comparable new contributions and collections.

Formats that have been periodically used for interfacing with practical issues and discussion of policy challenges include these: Practitioner (’from the field’) statements or Interviews; ‘Author meets critics’, such as in a 2022 symposium (Issue 18(2)) on Peter Hägel’s book Billionaires in World Politics; sections of issues devoted to pressing global challenges such as COVID (Issue 19(3), 2021); and Discussion Notes ‘that present critical examination of current affairs and offer practitioners’ voices’ (Editorial of Issue 10(1), 2014). That 2014 issue, for example, included a Discussion Note by UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai on the rights to freedom of assembly and association.

Managing the journal

Managing a journal with this range of ambitions and formats is a demanding task. We wish to acknowledge and warmly thank all the past editors. We include special thanks here to Eric Palmer, who acted as de facto managing editor for an entire decade, starting from issue 9(3) in 2013 through to issue 19(3) in 2023. Eric provided major contributions in all the processes of management and in many editorials and special features. He continued the practice of often weaving reference to the papers in an issue into a broader discussion. He and Christine Koggel have given meticulous attention and detailed advice to individual papers; and they provided an extensive for-information editorial, ‘On the Editorial Process’, to guide potential contributors (Palmer and Koggel 2020). Eric strengthened the practice of acknowledging the invaluable inputs from paper reviewers and from production staff at Taylor & Francis; and he has continually sought ways to reach potential authors and audiences, promoting the variety of formats. For example, he set up the ‘Tenth Anniversary Forum: The Future of Global Ethics’, a trilogy of special sections that appeared in volume 10 (2014). In Issue 10(1) ‘practitioner-experts and distinguished academics from various disciplines [were] invited to reflect upon how they see global ethics today and what they envision for the field in the future’. This was followed by an open call for contributions which led to sections in Issues 10(2) and 10(3). The Editorial for 10(3) included a reflection on the Forum set as a whole, in relation to contemporary events. Eric also led design and initiation of the second Forum set, for 2024. In the recent Editorial in Issue 19(2) that invited papers for this second set, he looked back over the 2014 Forum papers and identified threads of discussion emergent since then, such as decolonial philosophy.

Identifying challenges: globalization and the Anthropocene

Part of JGE’s efforts to stimulate reflection and bring together new thinking has been active use of editorials, to provide essential context and linkages for the contributions in the specialist individual papers. This has been maintained throughout the two decades. For example, a series of editorials that appeared during 2017 and 2018, with major contributions by the late Martin Schönfeld, have a continuing relevance and deserve further attention.

The editorial for Issue 13(2) (Schönfeld, Palmer, and Hellsten 2017) proposed the following:

Many countries, then, appear to be lurching toward thin democracy and illiberal pseudo-democracy, with governance systems committed to economic neoliberalism but disloyal to political liberalism and its values of equality, tolerance, and moral agency. Perhaps most worrisome is that these antidemocratic transformations are not brought about by military coups or revolutionary takeovers, but by democratic processes and institutions, which are co-opted into legitimizing authoritarian leaders, autocratic policies, and political oppression. … One reason for the rise of authoritarian neoliberalism is regulatory capture of institutions by corporate stakeholders. How this leads to failing democratic governance is vividly illustrated by the dramatic transformation of the United States, with a comprehensive push for deregulation and for deconstructing the administrative state. Another reason is the concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands as a consequence of unfettered global capitalism. … 

… A civilizational model that used to ensure stability by growth is colliding with biophysical limits. As sustainable yields and environmental services are being overshot, a growth-based economic model fails to deliver on its promise, stratifying societies and fomenting radicalism. … Free markets and free elections used to go hand in hand. Not anymore, it seems. Now it appears that free markets spawn oligarchies, which dismantle democratic institutions. (113–114)

Three subsequent editorials extended this proffered analysis, through a focus on environmental deterioration and its possible political impacts. First, in Issue 13(3) in 2017, ‘The shifting patterns of progress’ noted how while ‘annual total consumption exceeded annual planetary capacity’ for the first time’ in 1971, by 2017 ‘Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 2 [April 18 for Norway]’ (Schönfeld, Palmer, and Hellsten 2017, 241). In other words, the sustainable planetary capacity for the year had already been used up just seven months into the year.

Second, in Issue 14(1) in 2018, Schönfeld provided an editorial on: ‘The migration crisis and nexus thinking’. Migration has been a core issue driving Right-wing populism, whose leaders however have often disdained research evidence on the causes of that migration.

Nexus thinking is the common-sense idea that objectively interlinked issues can be acted upon by connecting all the dots. One dot missing in the political debates on migration in the New World is climate change. American conservatives deny intellectual authority to science, while liberal politicians do not link the surge in migration to a cause in climate change. Yet they should. … the loss of carrying capacity in the Global South [for example in Central America] due to the anthropogenic carbon pulse of the Global North, especially by the U.S., is unprecedented. (Schönfeld 2018a, 2)

Third, Issue 14(3)’s Editorial by Schönfeld was on the Anthropocene, entitled The Fork in the Road. Its title matched the contents of a then recent article by leading climate scientists (Steffen et al. 2018), and of an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report (SR15; IPCC 2018) warning that, in Schönfeld’s words: ‘The world’s climate is approaching a phase change. A little bit more global warming, and the world’s climate will likely flip into a “hothouse” state that will make parts of the planetary surface uninhabitable.’ (Schönfeld 2018b, 305). The Editorial suggested implications for global ethics.

Scientifically, the last residual uncertainties over our trajectory have evaporated. There is no scientific debate anymore over the reality and causes of climate change, and neither is there any debate over consequential harms. … [However] liberal democracies throughout the world [and not only they] consistently prioritize economic growth, so as to ensure social stability, and … the proximity of planetary boundaries such as the 1.5°C guardrail does not affect this economic reality. Changing economic realities would have to be a political decision. (Schönfeld 2018b, 308)

Yet various populist leaders and prophets of business promise to save the world by further, intensified, indeed never-ending, economic growth.

The new editorial team cannot promise to provide equally ambitious and thought-provoking editorials but will try to continue to stimulate thought and discussion, including possibly through sometimes hosting guest editorials.

The papers in this issue

Three full-length papers

‘Transnational solidarity in feminist practices: power, partnerships, and accountability’ by Marie-Pier Lemay (Carleton University, Canada) looks at the experiences and felt needs of Senegalese women’s rights NGOs and activists and their experiences of dealing with foreign funding organizations. Lemay argues that thinking about transnational solidarity has been preoccupied with generalized ethical argumentation about why solidarity should be shown by privileged groups and too little about how; and that thinking about how must be informed by listening to those whom they avow to support. So Lemay argues for closer attention to ‘the demand side of solidarity’, focusing on the aims and needs of aid recipients rather than only debating whether and how far solidarity is an obligation for the Global North. The paper tries thus to be an exercise in grounded normative theory (Ackerly et al. 2021), making normative proposals that are informed by empirical research. Her interviews in Senegal revealed divisions amongst activists and NGOs regarding the social and cultural norms that should define gender equality struggles and the appropriate balance between women’s short-term ‘practical interests’ and their arguable longer-term ‘strategic interests’; and also, vitally, they revealed the centrality of power asymmetries between groups, so that ‘a normative account of transnational solidarity must demonstrate strategies for mitigating power asymmetries and hierarchies’. Addressing power dynamics within Senegalese society as well as international partnerships, Lemay reflects that such strategies should include institutionalizing mutual accountability, not only a one-sided accountability of Southern implementers to foreign funders; and, for example, longer-term funding horizons. There is scope here for linking to decades of grounded normatively inspired work on development cooperation and partnerships, for example by Robert Chambers, David Ellerman or Rosalind Eyben.

In ‘Assessing capabilities theory as a justice basis of climate resilience strategies’ Jose Carlos Cañizares Gaztelu (Universidad de Sevilla, Spain), Neelke Doorn and Samantha M. Copeland (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands) take up the project of how to use the capability approach developed by Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum and others, to evaluate the impact of climate change on people and communities, and to design and assess policy proposals for climate change adaptation and resilience. Although the capability approach’s concern with multiple dimensions of well-being and agency makes it of obvious relevance here, Cañizares et al. argue that applying it systematically is a larger challenge than has been appreciated. They review the literature on efforts that have been previously made; propose a concrete set of functionings as especially deserving of focus; and identify limitations of the capability approach to cover all the relevant and important issues of justice that are at stake, advising that it needs to build bridges to complementary theories such as resourcist and needs theories.

In ‘Why a uniform carbon tax is unjust’ Fausto Corvino (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) challenges the consensus among moral philosophers in support of a uniform carbon tax with equal distribution of the resulting revenue. Drawing from the capability approach literature as well as from the emergent idea of limitarianism (associated with Ingrid Robeyns, among others), Corvino argues that charging the (super)rich the same price as others for the carbon emissions of their consumption choices is unjust. First, it undermines the effectiveness of a carbon tax in discouraging unnecessarily climate damaging consumption, for the rich can afford to pay more to continue their high carbon lifestyles. Second, by failing to distinguish and discriminate between the objective value of the activities taxed – rather than merely agents’ subjective preference ordering over them in relation to their personal financial resources – a uniform tax imposes greater burdens on the poor by reducing the affordability of accessing basic and essential capabilities.

Global Ethics Forum 2024 – Part One

Issue 20(1) contains also the first instalment of the 2024 Global Ethics Forum. The call for contributions was made in Issue 19(2) and on our journal website and distributed via several academic channels. The call was for short papers that will stimulate thought about challenges and directions for global ethics. The papers are reviewed and screened by the editors and not subject to conventional refereeing procedure.

This first instalment consists of seven papers, which can be grouped into three sets.

First, two papers of theoretical conspectus by senior scholars that each advocate a specific framework and theoretical emphasis for global ethics. Cees Hamelink (Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) proposes an expansive understanding of human rights thinking that he believes can provide a basic framework. Wenyu Xie (Shandong University, China) argues for the relevance and realism of a Confucian approach that grounds ethics, including global ethics, in relationships of trust. He contrasts this sort of ethics, based on ‘sentimental education’, with what he calls ‘ideological efforts in morality’, which try to establish a theoretical system which generates ethical principles. In Xie’s paper, human rights ethics are classified as ideological efforts. There is thus an interesting tension between the two proposals. However, Hamelink proposes that his interpretation of human rights ethics offers an emotionally well-grounded framework that can bring together moral intuition based on sentimental education, rational judgment in the light of normative principles of human rights, and communal communication about justification.

Second, three papers by younger scholars advocate particular foci for attention in reading, research and/or policy campaigning. Ezekiel Vergara (University of Pennsylvania, USA) makes a case for the continuing importance of John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples; Yury Tikhonravov (Center for Study and Development of Intercultural Relations, Moscow) calls for a fresh look at lists of basic values; and Douglas Campbell (Alma College, USA) calls for rejection of many ‘social media’ apps in light of their deliberatively addictive design and other questionable effects.

Third, two papers again by senior scholars focus not on theories in global ethics but on late-career, post-retirement thoughts about what values have in reality been prevalent in practice, openly or else implicitly, during their careers and currently. Both authors have been much involved in practice as well as engaged in more detached reflection. Howard Harris (University of South Australia) considers the predominance in practice of national economic growth as the regnant value or family of values, and stresses the danger of over-confident assertions of what are inevitably limited interpretations. He goes on to call for mobilization of intellectual and emotional resources from multiple traditions, including through use of narrative approaches. Desmond McNeill (University of Oslo, Norway) provides a sobering concluding paper. He compares governments’ declarations about their values and commitments in international relations, and argues that, in their actual practice, countries have shown little sense of obligation to citizens of other countries. The recent experiences that he examines are the responses to three recent or ongoing crises: climate change, COVID-19, and international migration. Rich countries have, for example, prevaricated over providing support to poor countries in respect of damage caused to the latter by climate change; and they displayed bizarre degrees of ‘vaccine nationalism’ during the COVID-19 pandemic, often procuring and stockpiling vaccines in far greater volumes than they needed, thus promoting high prevalence in poorer countries of this globally mobile virus. McNeill concludes with ‘an invitation for more work to identify and reflect on ethics-in-practice, as an essential complement to normative philosophical ethics. This might, over time, help to make such normative ethics better focused, more realistic, and more fruitful.’

Overall, these contributions match what we described earlier as the journal’s interests in: characterizing and influencing the field of global ethics to try to help it become more truly global; promoting the interfacing of a range of disciplines and theoretical orientations; and providing value-conscious attention to real-world problems. The Forum is intended for short thought-provoking pieces rather than full-length articles with extensive academic apparatus. We hope that this first of three parts of the 2024 Forum will succeed in provoking thinking and follow-up; and we encourage submissions for the second and third parts, in the subsequent two issues within volume 20. Details of how to send submissions are given in the call for papers that follows this editorial.

Call for submissions – Global Ethics Forum, Parts 2 and 3

For the twentieth anniversary year of the journal, the editors solicit brief articles concerning the future directions for the fields of global ethics, global justice, and development ethics, and reflections upon critical challenges that may reshape these fields. This call follows the model used for the tenth anniversary year of the journal, which led to three special sections that appeared in Volume 10, 2014, issues 1, 2 and 3.

Special sections are now planned for the forthcoming issues of Journal of Global Ethics, 20:2 and 20:3.

Issue 20:2 – submissions due 15 July

Issue 20:3 – submissions due 15 September

The first special section appears already in the present issue, 20:1.

We anticipate that this invitation will draw focused and topical reflections regarding the current state and possibilities for the evolution of these fields. The call is an opportunity for practitioners and academics to bring the attention of colleagues to specific areas in which you would wish to see work accomplished in theory, in research and in action.

Further elaboration on this call for submissions is presented in the Editorial for issue 19:2 (August 2023), which is open-access.

We consider these sections to be a forum, rather than a space for traditional lengthy peer-review. However, the submissions should be short academic papers, not simply blog-posts or op-eds; and they will be reviewed and screened by the Editors. We aim to publish all Forum offerings that we find to be cogent and relevant. Our request is for a reflection of between 1500 and 4000 words. Please also provide an abstract of around 100 words and a list of 3–5 keywords.

Please submit material to the journal’s editing system by the usual article submission process, selecting submission type ‘review’, rather than ‘research article’, and indicating ‘Global Ethics Forum’ at the ‘special issue’ prompt within the submission process.