Concerns over extreme poverty and inequality have led to a number of proposals for the reform of global taxation policy. Such proposals are enjoying serious analysis and, in some cases, implementation. While issues concerning national taxation have long concerned philosophers — invoking core questions about the legitimacy of governments and their appropriate functions as well as about the nature of freedom, coercion, and property rights — issues of global taxation and international tax fairness have not received anything like the same attention. Through a special issue of the journal Moral Philosophy and Politics, co-editors Gillian Brock, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Auckland, and Thomas Pogge, ASAP President and Leitner Professor of Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale, aim to remedy such neglect, stimulating further interest especially among moral and political philosophers who we hope will be motivated to turn their attention to many of the important normative questions that deserve more sustained analysis.
