Priority-setting in international nongovernmental organizations: it is not as easy as ABCD
General Material Designation
[Article]
First Statement of Responsibility
/ Lisa Fuller
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
9626-1744
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
Recently theorists have demonstrated a growing interest in the ethical aspects of resource allocation in international nongovernmental humanitarian, development and human rights organizations (INGOs). This article provides an analysis of Thomas Pogge's proposal for how international human rights organizations ought to choose which projects to fund. Pogge's allocation principle states that an INGO should govern its decision making about candidate projects by such rules and procedures as are expected to maximize its longrun costeffectiveness, defined as the expected aggregate moral value of the projects it undertakes divided by the expected aggregate cost of these projects (2007. Moral priorities for international human rights NGOs. In Ethics in action, ed. D. Bell and J. Coicaud, 21856. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 241). I critique Pogge's argument on two fronts: (1) I demonstrate that his view is problematic on his own terms, even if we accept the costeffectiveness framework he employs. (2) I take issue with his overall approach because it generates results which can undermine the integrity of INGOs. Further, his approach mischaracterizes the nature of INGOs, and this mistake is at the root of his problematic view of INGO prioritysetting. Ultimately, I argue for a conception of INGOs in which they are understood as organizations of principle, in the sense that they are independent moral agents and so should be permitted a fairly wide sphere of autonomy within reasonable moral constraints.