8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 1/16

Duties of Justice, Duties of Material Aid: Cicero's Problematic LegacyAuthor(s): Martha C. NussbaumSource: Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Spring, 2001),pp. 38-52Published by: American Academy of Arts & SciencesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3824685 .

Accessed: 31/08/2011 16:10

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of 

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

 American Academy of Arts & Sciences is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to

 Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

http://www.jstor.org

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 2/16

STATEDMEETINGEPORT

= -_̂ ..Duties of Justice,Duties

E-

otofMaterialAid: Cicero's

2', Problematic egacy

- . - MarthaC.Nussbaum

Universityf Chicago

OnOctober 8, 2000, theAcademy'sMidwestCenterhosted

the 1838thStatedMeetingat the ChicagoCulturalCenter.

MidwestCenterVicePresident ogerB.Myersonresidedver

the event. At the regionalinductionceremony,Academy

ExecutiveOfficerLeslieC. BerlowitzoinedMr.Myersonn

greeting ewly lectedmembersrom heMidwest. he ollow-

ing is a condensedversionof the evening's ommunication,

presented yMarthaC.Nussbaum.he peakers Ernst reund

Professorf LawandEthics t theUniversityfChicago, here

sheholdsappointmentsnthe LawSchool,heDivinitychool,

andtheDepartmentf Philosophy.

Author'sote:The ullversion f thispaperforthcoming,ournal

of Politicalhilosophy)as presentedat a conference n cos-

mopolitanismnd nationalism t StanfordUniversity, pril

15-17, 1999, and at a session on cosmopolitanismt the

Central ivisionftheAmericanhilosophicalssociation,May

1999. It was partof my seriesof Castle Lectures t Yale

Universityn March 000-a series hatwill alsoinclude on-

siderationof the Cynicand Stoic background f Cicero's

account, nd itslegacynGrotius, ant, ndthe foundationsf

modernnternationalaw.Thisprojects linked o myworkon

the capabilitiespproach, hich pellsoutbasicguaranteesthat shouldbe madeto all citizensas a necessary asisof a

decent life; see WomenndHumanevelopment:heCapabilities

ApproachCambridge niversityress,2000).

I.TheStatesmen's ible

A child born this year in the United States has a life

expectancy of 76.4 years.* A child born in Sierra

*HumanDevelopmentReport1998, United Nations De-

velopment Programme(New York:Oxford UniversityPress,1998).

38 SPRING 001

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 3/16

Speaker artha ussbaumUniversityfChicago),oined yBernard.MeltzerUniversityf Chicago),CarlA. AuerbachUniversityf

Minnesota),ndDavid evingtonUniversityfChicago).

Leone can expect to live 34.7 years. Clean water,health services, sanitation, maternal health and

safety, and adequate nutrition are all distributed

very unevenly around the world. The accident of

being born in one country shapes the life chances

of everychild.What do our theories of international law and

moralityhave to say about this situation?Verylit-

tle. Although we have many accounts of aid at a

distance, we have virtually no consensus on this

question. Some of our majortheories of justice are

silent about it, simply starting from the nation-state as the basic unit. International law has not

progressed ar either.Although many international

documents addresssecond-generation rights (eco-nomic and social rights) in addition to standard

political and civil rights, they typicallydo so in a

nation-state-basedway,portrayingcertain materialentitlements as what all citizens have a right to

demand from their own state. Most would admit

that we are members of a largerworld communityand bear some obligation to give material aid to

poor people in other nations. But we have no clear

pictureof what those

obligationsare.

The primitive state of our thinking on this issue

cannot be explained by saying that we have not

thought about internationalobligations. In some

areaswe havesophisticatedtheories that command

wide consensus: theories of the properconduct of

SPRING001 39

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 4/16

war and of proper conduct to the enemy duringwar;theoriesabout torture and crueltyto persons;

theories about the rape of women and othertransnationalatrocities;and theoriesabout aggres-sive acts towardforeignnationals,whether on our

soil or abroad.All these we have workedout. Our

theoriesof international aw and justicehave been

dealingwith them at least from the first century

B.C., when Cicerodescribed he dutiesof justicein his work On Duties (De Officiis)-a work enor-

mously influential in forming the education of

statesmen and of thinkers such as Grotius, Kant,and the founders of international aw and modern

politicalphilosophy.

I arguethat some of our valuableinsights into thedutiesof justice, as well asour primitivethinking

about materialaid, can be attributedto Cicero. In

On Duties he arguesthat duties of justiceareverystrict and require high moral standards across

national boundaries.Duties of materialaid, how-

ever,are elastic and give room to preferthe nearand dear. Indeed, Cicero thinks we positively

ought to preferthe near and dear,giving material

aid outside our borders only when that can be

done without sacrifice o ourselves.

We need tobegin by summarizing

Cicero'sargu-ment, in order to be able later to identify both its

helpful insightsand its influentialconfusions.

II.TheDutiesof Justice

Cicero'sgeneral

account of the duties ofjusticeO(ustitia)as two parts.Justice requiresnot doing

any harm to anyone, unlessprovokedby a wrong-ful act. This is how Cicero thinks fundamentallyaboutjusticeand injustice.Second,justicerequires

usingcommon thingsas common, privateposses-sions as one'sown. Ciceroholds that it is a fun-

damental violation of justice to takepropertythat

is owned by someone else. He says that taking

property violatesthe law of human fellowship.But his account of the origin of the relevantprop-erty rightsis extremelyobscureand unconvincing.He also observes that the failure to prevent an

40 SPRING 2001

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 5/16

injustice is itself an injustice-an important

insight to which we shall soon return. Cicero is

clear thatjustice requires

us to treat adversaries

with respectand honesty.Trickerymust be avoid-

ed. Even those who have wronged you must be

treatedmorally.There is a limit to vengeanceand

punishment.

Cicero then turnsfrom these generalobservations

to the conduct of war.Henceforth,he does not dis-tinguish assault from property crime-and, of

course,warmingles the two subcategoriesof injus-tice. He insiststhat negotiatedsettlement is prefer-able to war, since the former involves behaving

humanly,whereasthe latterbelongs to beasts.War

should be a last resort when negotiations havefailed, and it is justified only when one has been

grievouslywronged. It should be limited to what

will make it possible to live in peace afterwards.

Afterconflict hasended, the vanquishedshould be

treatedfairlyand even received into citizenshipin

one's own nation when possible.

During conflict, the foe is to be treatedmercifully.Cicero would permit an army to surrender

unharmedeven afterthebatteringram has touched

the walls, which is more lenient than traditional

Roman practice. Promises made to the enemymust be kept. Ciceroends his discussion of justice

by noting that the duties of justice are extended

even to slaves.

In general,we may say that Ciceronian duties of

justice involve an idea of respectfor humanity,of

treatinga human being like an end rather than ameans.

In Book III Cicero returnsto the duties of justice,

elaboratingon his claimthat they arethe basis for

a transnational aw of humanity.Since the useful

often conflicts with the honorable, he writes, we

need a rule. The rule is to never use violence ortheft againstany other human for our advantage.This rule gives rise to a universallybinding law of

nature.Cicero saysthat it is absurdfor us to hold

to this principle when our family or friends are

concerned but to deny that it holds for all relations

SPRING001 41

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 6/16

among citizens. But then it is equally absurdto

hold to it for fellowcitizens and deny it to foreign-ers.

Peoplewho makesuch a

distinction,he

writes,tearapartthe common fellowshipof the human

kind.

This part of Book III makes it very clear that

Cicero's duties of justice are fully cosmopolitan.National boundariesaremorallyirrelevant.

III.TheDutiesof Material id

Duties of justice are universaland impose strict

obligations.Verydifferent s Cicero'snextgroupof

duties:giving materialaid to others. He says that

these are basic to human nature, but there are

manyconstraints.Our gifts must not do harm,we

must not impoverish ourselves, and we have to

makesurethe gift suits the recipient.Throughout,there is a role for judgment. If other things are

equal,we should help the most needy.

Cicerosaysthat human fellowshipis best servedif

the people to whom one has the closest ties get the

most benefit. He enumerates he variousdegreesof

association.In no case does his argumentfor the

closeness of the connection rest on biology or

heredity.One relevant feature is shared human

practice:Cicero praises friendship as a powerfulsource of duties of aid. But his highest praise is

reserved or sharedpoliticalinstitutions.

Cicero proposesa flexible account that recognizes

many criteriaas pertinentto duties of aid-grati-

tude, need and dependency,political and friendlyassociation-but that also preserves lexiblejudg-ment in adjudicating conflicting claims. What is

clear, however, is that people outside our own

nation alwayslose.

IV.ALurkingiewAbout he Good

Why is it acceptable o Cicero that this asymmetryholds? He thinks it terrible to contemplate a

human assaultingor stealing from another. Yet if

the same people arestarvingand my nation has a

42 SPRING001

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 7/16

surplus,it seems to him just fine. There are many

things that explain these attitudes, includingCicero'scontroversialaccount of

property rights.But there is anotherconsideration.

In the De Officiis,Cicero'sviews lie closer to ortho-

dox Stoicism than in most of his other works.The

Stoic thesis that we should rise abovethe passionsis inseparable rom their view that externalthings,

the gifts of fortune, are irrelevant o the well-livedlife. The wise person scorns all such things. He

does not get upset at the loss of a fortune, or

health,or reputationand honor,because all that is

trivial.This Cicero endorses: the courageousper-son is greatand lofty in soul, despising human

things. In short, then, we can affordnot to worryabout the evenhandedness of our beneficence,because the reallystrongperson-any of us at our

best-does not need these things.

V.Doesthe Distinction tandUp?

It is time to ask some questions.We need to under-

stand whether Cicero's distinction of duties is

coherent, even to one who accepts the Stoic doc-

trine.Three argumentssuggestthat it is not.

A.Justice ndRespectful

reatment reExternal oods

The first objection is that if we are really thor-

oughgoing Stoics, we should not care about justtreatmentany more than about material aid. All

these things areexternals.To a personwho is trulyfreewithin, slavery, orture,and rapeare no worse

than poverty.The Stoics were quite explicitabout

this. The wise person is free, though he may be a

slave.The sage on the rackis happy.The personwho sees things aright will not care about con-

tempt and abuse. But if this is so, one rationale or

the distinction betweenthe two typesof dutiesdis-

appears. f humanityis owed a certainsortof treat-ment fromthe world, it would seem that it is owed

good material reatmentas well asrespectandnon-

cruelty.If the world'streatmentdoes not matterto

humanity,then it would seem thattortureandrapeareno more damagingthan poverty.It is incoher-

SPRING001 43

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 8/16

ent to salveone'sconscience on the dutiesof mate-

rial aid by thinking that these things are unneces-

saryfor true

flourishingwhile

insistingso

strictlyon the absolute inviolability of duties of justice,which pertain to other external things human

beingsneed.

I believe that much modern thought about duties

suffers rom this sameincoherence.We believethat

there are certainthings that areso bad, so deform-ing of humanity,that we must go to great lengthsto preventthem.Thus, with Ciceroand Seneca,we

hold that torture is an insult to humanity,and we

go further,rejectingslavery.But denying peoplematerialaid seems to us not in the same category.

We do not feel that we aretorturingor rapingpeo-ple when we deny them the things that they need

to live. Yetpoverty,of course, does make a differ-

ence. The human being is not a block or a rock,but a bodyof fleshand blood that is madeeachday

by its livingconditions. Hope, desire,expectation,

will-all these things are shaped by materialsur-roundings.

B.InterdependencendInterweaving

Even if we convince ourselves that humanity

imposesduties of justice but none of materialaid,we still have a problem:justice costs money. Any

political and legal order that protects people

against torture, rape, and cruelty needs material

support.There need to be lawyers,courts, police,and other administrativeofficers,presumably up-

ported bytaxes.Americansoften miss this

point,thinking that money spent on welfareand reliefof

poverty is money spent but that the police, the

courts, the fire department-everything that is

required o maintaina systemof contract,proper-

ty rights,and personalsafety-is free.That is clear-

lyfalse.In nations wherethe state is

impoverished,legal rights suffer: freedom of travel and public

safetyarejeopardized,and personalsecurityis not

protectedby effectivelaw enforcement.

Such problemsinternal to each nation alreadyputthe Ciceronianprojectin trouble.The problemis

44 SPRING 001

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 9/16

magnifiedwhen we think about what an effective

systemof international aw requires.Maintaininga

systemof

global justiceinvolvesmassive

expenses.In that sense the United States is at best muddled

and at worst hypocriticalwhen it sounds off about

human rights and yet opposes attempts to create

expensive institutions-or even to pay United

Nations dues. Caring about basic human rightsmeans

spendingmoney,not

just talkingfine talk.

We should conclude that if people say they arefor

the duties of justiceand yet areunwillingto redis-

tribute money across national borders, they are

actuallyhalfheartedabout the duties of justice.

C.Positive ndNegative

The duties of justicelook differentfromthe duties

of materialaid becausethey do not involve doing

anything, or not very much. They mainly involve

refrainingfrom aggressivewar, torture, rape, etc.

Duties of materialaid, by contrast, look like theyrequireus to do a greatdeal. That intuitive idea is

central in contemporarythinking when we sup-

pose that duties of material aid would impose a

greatburden on our nation, while duties of justicewould not. I havealreadycast doubt on the posi-

tive/negativedistinction by pointing out that realprotectionof people againstviolations of justice is

expensive.But someone may say,If we decide not

to spend this money,violationsmayoccur,but the

violatorswon't be us. We can consistentlydraw a

line-if not wherethe old line betweenjusticeand

material aid went, at least betweenacting

and

refraining. f we refrain rom cruelty,torture,etc.,we aredoing no wrong,even if we areunwillingto

spend money on people at a distance,even where

justice is in play.

To this argument the best reply was given by

Cicero himself. In Book I of the De Officiis,hewrote:

Thereare wotypesof injustice:necommitted ypeoplewho inflictawrong,anotherby thosewhofail to ward t off fromthose on whomit is beinginflicted, lthought is in theirpower o do so. For

SPRING 2001 45

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 10/16

a personwho unjustlyattacksanotherunderthe

influence f angerorsomeotherdisturbanceeems

to belaying

hands, o tospeak,upon

acolleague;butthepersonwhodoesnot provide defenseor

oppose heinjustice,f hecan, s justasblamewor-

thyasif he haddeserted is parents r his friends

orhiscountry.

The more active sort of injustice,he continues, is

usuallymotivatedby fear,or greed, or the love ofhonor and glory.Cicero now turns to the second

type,consideringhis own profession n the process:

As forneglectinghe defenseof othersand desert-

ing one's duty, there are many causesof that.

Sometimespeoplearereluctanto incur nmities r

hardworkorexpenses. ometimesheyareimped-ed bylackof concern r laziness rinactivity rbysomepursuits r business f theirown,to suchan

extent hat heyallow hosewhom heyshouldpro-tectto beabandoned.Wemust herefore atchout

lestPlato'statements boutphilosophers rove o

be insufficient:hat because heyareoccupied nthe pursuitof truth,andbecause heyscornand

despise he thingsthat mostpeople ntenselyeek

andfor whichtheyare in thehabitof murderingoneanother,hereforeheyarejust.Fortheyattain

one typeof justice,not wronginganyoneby the

inflictionof awrong,

butthey

fall into the other

type of injustice.For impededby their zeal for

learning, hey desertthosewhom they ought to

protect....

Cicero makes an important contribution in this

fascinatingsection. He grantsthat the active/pas-

sive distinction makes sense. There is a morallyrel-evant distinction between actively doing wrongand simply sitting by while a wrong takes place.But this distinction, while morally relevant,does

not entailthatno wrong is done by the personwho

sits by. Making unjust war is one bad thing, but

not protecting your fellows when you have theresources o do so is another.There are many rea-

sons, he writes, that people behavelike this: theydon't want hard work, they don't want to make

enemies, they are simply lazy. But none of these

excusesthe bad behavior.

46 SPRING 001

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 11/16

Clearly,Cicero means to blame people who will

not servetheir own nation, and to defend the life

of committed public service.He saysthat nations(or theircitizens)should not standbywhen wrongis going on somewhereelse. Not to help someone

who is being attacked s like desertingyour familyor friends.Perhapsthere is an implicit restriction

to importantallies, but I do not see it anywhere:the active sort of

injusticeis defined

generally,as

assault againstanyone, and the ensuingaccount

of the passivesort seems equallybroad.

Cicero does not elaborateon dutiesimposedby the

requirement to avoid passive injustice. Does it

mean only if you can without any sacrifice to

yourself ?This reading seems ruled out by hisattack on the motives of people who won't helpbecausethey don'twant to incur expenseor hard

work. Presumably,hen, he thinks that people are

in the wrongunlessthey arewilling to incurenmi-

ty and expense and hardwork in order to protect

their fellow human beings.

By placingthis discussion nside the section on the

duties of justice, Cicero seems to limit the passivesort to warding off actual attacks or assaults.He

doesn't think that hunger and povertyare assaults

againstwhich one has duties to protect one's fel-

lows, or else he would have to rewritecompletelythe section on benevolence. Butwhy not?It seems

unconvincingto treatthe two typesof harmasym-

metrically.

At this point we must part companywith Cicero,

viewingthe discussion of

passiveinjusticeas

sug-gestive but underdeveloped.The important pointis that Cicero is right. It is no good to say Ihave

done no wrong f one sits by when one could save

fellow human beings.That is true of assault,and it

is true of materialaid. Most of us do continue to

think in somethinglike Cicero'sway,feelingthat it

is incumbent on us (maybe) to save people from

thugs and bad guys, but not incumbenton us to

save them from the equallyaggressivedepredationsof hunger, poverty,and disease. Cicero has let in a

consideration hat is fatalto his own argumentand

to its modern descendants.

SPRING2001 47

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 12/16

I have arguedthat Cicero'sdistinction is not fullycoherent, even with acceptanceof the Stoic doc-

trine that external goods are not important. Yetthat distinction also gets mileage from that doc-

trine, because Stoic moral theory permits us to

salve our conscience about our failure to aid our

distant fellows.

D.TheFalsity

f the StoicDoctrine

It is time, then, to say that the Stoic doctrine is

false. Peopledo have amazing powersof resistance

and a dignity that can surmountthe blows of for-

tune. But this does not mean that these blows are

unimportant.Moreover,

hey profoundlyaffect the

verypartsof the personthat are of greatest nterest

to the Stoics:mentality,moralpower,the powerto

form confirming associations with other human

beings.The Stoic position seems to be either that

these things are external blows, and they don't

touch what really matters, or that they are the

result of some moral weakness in the person, in

which casethey do matter,but the personherself s

to blame.

This is a false dichotomy; that moral character

could survive the blowsof fortune unaffecteddoes

not show that the blows of fortune do not deeplyaffectit, or thatanysucheffectis the resultof weak

or bad character.The surmounterof fortune is an

exceptionwho does not show the moralculpabili-

ty of those who yield to depressionand hopeless-ness.Moreover,such a surmounter s verylikelyto

have had previous good fortune: a good-enoughhome in childhood, parentswho nourished self-

regard,and good nutrition when crucial faculties

weredeveloping.

Do we need to say this? Is there any dangerthat

our modern Ciceronians will use such a self-evi-

dently false doctrine? I fear that there is. As weknow too well, povertyis often treatedas a moral

failing,even by people who would not so treatthe

damages done to a person by rape or torture or

even racialdiscrimination. In the areaof material

aid, Stoicismlives on.

48 SPRING 001

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 13/16

VI.What s Left?

Let us return to Cicero'sargumentfor preferringthe nearand dear,to askwhatwe cansalvage romit that should move us to think there might be

some asymmetryin our duties. He brings in six

considerations.

1. Propertyrights.Cicero defines justicepartly in

termsof propertyrights,understoodasjustifiedbythe luck of existing distributions.He arguesthat

once property s appropriated,no matterhow, tak-

ing it is the gravestviolation. If I have a right to

something, and it is egregiouslybad for someone

to take it away,then it would seem peculiarto say

that I have a moralduty to give it away.ModernCiceroniansmight granteverythingI have

said about the problemsin Cicero'sdistinction of

duties and yet hold that property rights are so

important that they justify making the duties of

beneficenceimperfectduties. On the other hand,

any such thinker is bound to notice the thinnessand arbitrarinessof his account of these rights.

Why should it be the case that eachshould hold

what falls to the shareof each, and if anyonetakes

anything from this he violates the law of human

association ?Why not say instead that claims to

ownershipareprovisional,to be adjudicatedalongwith claims of need? By emphasizing need as a

legitimatesource of moral claims, Cicero has left

himselfwide open to this objection.

2. Gratitudefor nurture.A strongerargumentis

Cicero'scontention that citizensowegratitudefortheir nurture to parents, relatives,and especially

their republic. This gives them reasons to giveresources o those who haveexpendedresourceson

them. This argumentoffers a good justification or

at least some asymmetry n our duties of material

aid. However, it does notjustify

Cicero'sconclu-

sion that we have duties to people at a distance

only when it costs us absolutelynothing.

3. Need and dependency.Ciceroarguesthat some

people depend on us in a very personalway.Our

own childrenhave needs that only we arelikely to

SPRING2001 49

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 14/16

meet well. If we let them down, they arelikely to

suffergreatly.Severalthings in this argumentseem

right:some duties to childrencan be met only in acontext of intimacy; something similar probablyholds of fellow citizens. But it seems questionablewhether the duties of materialaid are like this.

Perhapsparentsshould give love and attention to

their own children, but a lot of their money to

internationalwelfareagencies,

andsimilarly

or fel-

low citizens.

4. Thickfellowship.The most modern laim that

Ciceromakes for the republic-one that is central

to modern discussions of these issues-is that our

participation n it makes claimson our human fac-

ulties that other,more distant associationsdo not.We share,he says,in speechand reason n a varietyof wayswhen we associatewith our fellowcitizens,

thus confirmingand developingour humanity in

relationto them. This is not the casewith the for-

eign national, unless that personis a guest on our

soil. For this reason, Cicero thinks, we owe morematerialaid to the republicthan we do to foreignnationsand nationals.The idea is presumably hat

we have reasonsto makesure that the institutions

that supportand confirm our humanityprosper.

One might complain that Cicero's point wasalreadyof dubious validity in his own time, since

Rome alreadyhad complex civic and political ties

with many parts of the world. In our day, we

increasingly associate with people elsewhere.

Networkssuch as the internationalwomen'smove-

ment may supply people with some of their mostfundamental confirming associations. Even if

Cicero had made a good argumentfor the restric-

tion of our duties, it would be lessweighty today.

But thinking about international networks todayshowswhy we should furtherdoubt Cicero'sargu-

ment. Why should it be that only those peoplewho have alreadymanagedto join an internation-

al network haveduties of materialaid to people in

other nations?Areignoranceand neglecttheirown

justification? f, like manyAmericans,I have min-

imalknowledgeof and contact with anyotherpart

50 SPRING2001

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 15/16

of the world, am I absolved of any duties to that

world?This cannot be right.

5. Accountability.We might read Cicero'sprevious

argumentto suggestthat one of the formsof asso-

ciationthatwe share,in that fine institution of the

republic, is mutual accountability, including

accountabilityof public policy to citizens. This

gives us reasons to use our money on a form of

governmentthat has this desirable eature.Does itgive us reasons to supportrepublicangovernmentall over the world, or does it give us reasonsto

focus our materialaid on our own?We mightcom-

binethe accountabilitypoint with thepointsabout

need, dependency,and gratitude,and saythat our

own has a strongclaim on our resources.

There is something in this argument. But it also

suggeststhat at least some resourcesmight be used

to supportother republicangovernments.Its main

point is that institutionsof a certaintype aregood

protectorsof people, because of their responsive-ness;this makes them good for channelingdutiesof aid. Certainly, he argumentdoes not get usany-where near Cicero'sstrong conclusion that no aid

outside the nation is morallyrequired f that will

be even minimallycostly.

Cicero has some decent argumentsthat justify apartialasymmetry n our materialduties:the argu-ments from gratitude, need, association, and

accountabilityall do at leastsome work. But none

justifies his radical confinement of duties to the

interiorof the republic.

6. Thedifficulty of assigningthe duties.ImplicitinCicero'sargumentis a considerationhe neverfully

develops:it is too difficult to assign the relevant

duties once we get beyond the boundariesof the

republic.Within the compass of the republic,we

have a pretty good understandingof who owes

what to whom. Butonce we startthinkingtransna-tionally, t is quite bewildering.There aretoo many

needyrecipients,and there are all the different ev-

els of both giver and receiver:persons, groups,

nongovernmental organizations, governments,

corporations.As Cicero remarks, theresourcesof

SPRING2001 51

8/12/2019 3824685

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/3824685 16/16

individuals are limited, and the needy are an

unlimited horde. How can we say to whom we

owe the finite resourceswe have,unlesswe do drawthe line at our friends and fellow nationals?

This problem is not recognizedfor the duties of

justice,becausewe imaginewe cangive respectand

truthfulness and nonrape and nonaggression to

everyone, and there is no difficult distribution

problem (until we start thinking of supportingthesepolicieswith money).Justice ooks as if it can

be universallydistributedwithout expense;materi-

al aid obviously cannot. I've arguedthat this is a

false asymmetry.But if we attack the asymmetry,we are left with the problemof assigningthe rele-

vant transnationalduties.

I have no answers to these tough questions. To

answerthem well will requireworkingout theories

of institutionalversus ndividualresponsibility, nd

theoriesof just transferbetween nations. We don't

yet have such theories.We have refinedalternatives

in the domestic case but only sketches at the

transnational evel. What is clear,however,is that

we should not fall back on the Ciceroniandoctrine

with its multipleevasions;we should continue our

work.

Communication 2000 byMarthaC. Nussbaum.

Photo? 2000 byJoanHackett.

52 SPRING 2001