Cosmopolitan Principles of Distributive Justice

ABSTRACT: Cosmopolitans hold that our duties of distributive justice to others do not stop at borders. Darrel Moellendorf is among those who defend the view that principles of distributive justice are applicable beyond borders. He suggests as a principle of international justice the global difference principle, which allows inequalities in the distribution of wealth and resources only if they are to the greatest advantage of the least advantaged individuals. In this paper, I try to in-dicate that Moellendorf’s argument for the global difference principle is far from sustaining it. Instead, I argue for a minimum floor principle of distributive justice on the basis of the idea that each person ought to have an equal standard of living with respect to the fulfillment of their basic interests. I also propose the principle of contribution backed up by the principle of fair equality of opportunity, aiming to equalize background conditions of a competition for socially favored positions, as the basic principles of a complete account of global distributive justice. KEY WORDS: Cosmopolitanism, the difference principle, distributive justice, fair equality of opportunity, Moellendorf