Is Global Poverty a Moral Problem for Citizens of Affluent Societies?

Harry van der Linden, Butler University

Abstract

This paper contests the view of R. Bittner that global poverty is not a moral problem for citizens of affluent societies. It argues instead that the affluent have a duty to alleviate this poverty because they are in various ways morally implicated in an unjust global economy of growing inequality, leaving one billion people without minimally adequate resources and opportunities.