ABSTRACT
This extensive empirical introduction leaves many important ethical questions to the later chapters. Critics of non-ideal theory might object that all of these details may be important for politicians or international aid agencies, but have no place in a book on the ethics of global poverty. A philosopher should be able to figure out the ethics of global poverty without knowing anything about the nature of the problem. She can simply theorize from her armchair to determine whether poverty is morally problematic, if so, what duties moral agents have to combat it, and what they are permitted to do in order to discharge their duties. Indeed, very many philosophical papers have been written on the ethics of global poverty without engaging in any analysis of the actual causes or consequences of poverty in the real world. While I do not endorse this approach, each chapter of the book can be easily comprehended without having to read the preceding chapters. Readers so inclined may choose to skip the more empirically oriented chapters of the book.
