According to many accounts of global distributive justice, our basic needs are salient in determining what we owe one another. When people are unable to meet their basic needs, global justice has not yet been realized. In this entry, we examine, first, accounts of basic needs available to play this important role in developing our global responsibilities. Discussing such accounts also enables us to address some central questions often raised in connection with needs, namely: Why are needs morally and politically salient? What kinds of responsibilities, if any, can they generate? Are there any needs which are universal, or are they always culturally relative? Are needs importantly distinct from several other neighboring concepts, such as preferences or desires?
Two recent accounts of basic needs are influential, can help us address these questions, and so deserve some detailed discussion, namely the philosophical account offered by David Braybrooke (1987) and that of Len Doyal and Ian...
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Brock, G. (2011). Basic Needs. In: Chatterjee, D.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Justice. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9160-5_3
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