The United Nations and the Ethics of Global Poverty

15.9.-15.10. Tue 14-16, U37 sh 1 and Thu 14-16, U40 sali 12.
Participation is limited to 30 students. Registration for the course between 27.8.-22.9. in WebOodi.

¤updated 2.9.2009¤

Prerequisites

Basic Studies

Target group/Course level

Advanced level world politics students

Objectives

To paraphrase Charles Dickens, the early twenty-first century is truly the best of times and the worst of times. Approximately one billion people, one-seventh of the world’s population, live in what the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) classifies as extreme poverty. Alongside them a lesser proportion of the world’s population live in conditions of unprecedented wealth, with the sorts to comforts that were unavailable to even the wealthiest in earlier times. How can the drastic inequalities in material distribution and wellbeing that define the contemporary world be justified, if at all? On a deeper level, is there more to poverty than lack of purchasing power – is poverty a “brute fact”, to use the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe’s term, or is it a more complex matter? More directly, who is responsible for it, and how can it be tackled? Is severe poverty something the world will always have to live with, or can it be eradicated? These are some of the issues we will consider, through an approach that combines the methods of empirical political research and practical ethics/moral philosophy. On the philosophical side, the course will present moral arguments from a generally cosmopolitan perspective by Peter Singer, Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen, Thomas Pogge and others. On the empirical side, we will focus in particular on different United Nations bodies and initiatives that are either directly or to a significant extent concerned with global poverty. Thus we will discuss the UN Millennium Development Goals, and some parts of the work of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UNFAO, UNIFEM, UNICEF, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, and other poverty-related aspects of the immensely broad UN agenda.

Content

• 15 Sept. Introduction. World poverty and its place on the UN agenda
  - 17 Sept. Guest lecture by Professor Klaus Törnudd, former Ambassador of Finland to the United Nations: United Nations decision-making
  - 22 Sept. Differing conceptions of poverty and their implications for UN policy
  - 24 Sept. Overview of UN poverty- and development-related bodies, introduction to development ethics
  - 29 Sept. Evolution of UN development thinking and practice c. 1950 – 1990, Part I: Concepts and controversies of development
  - 1 Oct. Evolution of UN development thinking and practice c. 1950 – 1990, Part II: From economism to human development
  - 6 Oct. 1990 onwards: The United Nations Development Programme and the Human Development approach
  - 8 Oct. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals: outline and assessment from a development ethics perspective
  - 13 Oct. Women/gender and democracy promotion as UN development concerns
  - 15 Oct. Conclusions and lecturer’s feedback on essay plans
  

Completion

Regular attendance and active participation through questions and discussion are considered essential and will be taken into account in assigning final grades. There is no final exam. To receive the course credits students submit an essay of around 3000 words (word count varies significantly according to language, so the figure is only a rough guide). Essay topics will be specified at the start of the course. Students whose native language is not English are encouraged to concentrate on developing their academic writing skills by writing the essay in their own language (insofar as the lecturer’s current capabilities allow). Apart from English, essays can be submitted in Finnish, Swedish, German, Spanish or Italian. Essays must be emailed to the lecturer (james.oconnor@helsinki.fi) BY MONDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2009 AT THE LATEST.

¤updated 7th October¤

Grading

The course work will be graded on the standard scale of 0-5.

Course results and retake

Course results will be posted on the Department notice board (Unionkatu 37, 1st floor) by 15 November at the latest.

If the course work is not accepted or if the student wishes to raise his/her grade, he/she should contact the teacher within one month after the publication of the results and discuss arrangements for rewriting course work.

Course evaluation anddevelopment

During the last session, students will have an opportunity to give feedback on the course to the lecturer and to fill in an anonymous evaluation form. During the course feedback can be given anonymously.

When giving feedback, please evaluate the contribution of the teacher, your own contribution, the contributions of other students and the possible contribution of the Department office to the success of the course.