Pogge

Pogge says that “human persons are flourishing means that their lives are good, or worthwhile, in the broadest sense.”(33) What exactly is he saying concerning human flourishing? Is he building his theory off of this, by later tying universal justice to it? Or is human flourishing before justice, does justice allow one to flourish? He goes on to say what a component and means to flourishing are but he also goes on to say we must know what human flourishing consists in. Also, he makes the distinction about how one perceives human flourishing, from within or from without. At the beginning of 1.1 he basically says that, human flourishing is central to our personal, ethical, and political aspects of our lives and those lives around us. So, first, one needs to be able to flourish and then autonomy and justice fall in accord? Would he say flourishing is a capacity?

He gives four desiderata (something wanted or needed) criteria sought after for universal justice, to make the basic criteria more plausible internationally, so all countries will be on the same page, with respect to justice. I think that this is an extremely good point, and perhaps a major dividing point between countries. If all societies had the same criteria for justice, or any major moral issue for that matter, it would seem like it would be more effective with regard to action.

In 1.5 he talks about human rights and legal rights. Is one of his main worries or fears about tying human rights to legal rights, is that if they were tied together, then people of those countries would file legal claims against whoever is at fault? It seems like he is saying that human rights come first with no legal power, is that to say that human rights are more powerful then legal rights, which I think they should be, but could not be taken to court as a claim? And he goes on to say that legal rights come secondary depending upon the national constitution of the individual country. So who, if anyone, is he placing the responsibility upon when it comes to claims for human rights? I realize he thinks it is the social institutions, but what does he mean by that? Is there a specific line he is drawing, or would it be weighted according to GDP? And when he speaks of social institutions, is he talking about solely governments or more broadly?

A lot of questions, I hope we can go over most of these tomorrow to clarify some things.