Introduction

This Introduction provides the broad contextof the argument in this book for a normative cosmopolitan critique of global poverty from the perspective of recognition theory. After first supplying an overview of the ways that global poverty seems to have intensified in the current world, the value of responding in terms of a cosmopolitan recognition theory is then initially suggested. In particular, this approach aims to defend values which dignify the world's poor, namely the norms of ‘reason-to-value’ agency and ‘durable empowerment’. This broad overview is followed by chapter-by-chapter synopses of the arguments to be developed.