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Famine, Affluence, and Morality By Peter Singer From
Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 1972), pp. 229-243
[revised edition] As I write this, in
November 1971, people are dying in These are the essential
facts about the present situation in What are the moral
implications of a situation like this? In what follows, I shall argue that
the way people in relatively affluent countries react to a situation like
that in Bengal cannot be justified; indeed, the whole way we look at moral
issues - our moral conceptual scheme - needs to be altered, and with it, the
way of life that has come to be taken for granted in our society. In arguing for this
conclusion I will not, of course, claim to be morally neutral. I shall,
however, try to argue for the moral position that I take, so that anyone who
accepts certain assumptions, to be made explicit, will, I hope, accept my
conclusion. I begin with the
assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical
care are bad. I think most people will agree about this, although one may
reach the same view by different routes. I shall not argue for this view.
People can hold all sorts of eccentric positions, and perhaps from some of
them it would not follow that death by starvation is in itself bad. It is
difficult, perhaps impossible, to refute such positions, and so for brevity I
will henceforth take this assumption as accepted. Those who disagree need
read no further. My next point is this: if
it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby
sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do
it. By "without sacrificing anything of comparable moral
importance" I mean without causing anything else comparably bad to
happen, or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to promote
some moral good, comparable in significance to the bad thing that we can
prevent. This principle seems almost as uncontroversial as the last one. It
requires us only to prevent what is bad, and to promote what is good, and it
requires this of us only when we can do it without sacrificing anything that
is, from the moral point of view, comparably important. I could even, as far
as the application of my argument to the Bengal emergency is concerned,
qualify the point so as to make it: if it is in our power to prevent
something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally
significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle
would be as follows: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child
drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean
getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the
child would presumably be a very bad thing. The uncontroversial
appearance of the principle just stated is deceptive. If it were acted upon,
even in its qualified form, our lives, our society, and our world would be
fundamentally changed. For the principle takes, firstly, no account of
proximity or distance. It makes no moral difference whether the person I can
help is a neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall
never know, ten thousand miles away. Secondly, the principle makes no
distinction between cases in which I am the only person who could possibly do
anything and cases in which I am just one among millions in the same
position. I do not think I need to
say much in defense of the refusal to take proximity and distance into
account. The fact that a person is physically near to us, so that we have
personal contact with him, may make it more likely that we shall
assist him, but this does not show that we ought to help him rather
than another who happens to be further away. If we accept any principle of
impartiality, universalizability, equality, or
whatever, we cannot discriminate against someone merely because he is far
away from us (or we are far away from him). Admittedly, it is possible that
we are in a better position to judge what needs to be done to help a person
near to us than one far away, and perhaps also to provide the assistance we
judge to be necessary. If this were the case, it would be a reason for
helping those near to us first. This may once have been a justification for
being more concerned with the poor in one's town than with famine victims in There may be a greater
need to defend the second implication of my principle - that the fact that
there are millions of other people in the same position, in respect to the
Bengali refugees, as I am, does not make the situation significantly
different from a situation in which I am the only person who can prevent
something very bad from occurring. Again, of course, I admit that there is a
psychological difference between the cases; one feels less guilty about doing
nothing if one can point to others, similarly placed, who have also done
nothing. Yet this can make no real difference to our moral obligations. [2]
Should I consider that I am less obliged to pull the drowning child out of
the pond if on looking around I see other people, no further away than I am, who have also noticed the child but are doing nothing?
One has only to ask this question to see the absurdity of the view that
numbers lessen obligation. It is a view that is an ideal excuse for
inactivity; unfortunately most of the major evils - poverty, overpopulation,
pollution - are problems in which everyone is almost equally involved. The view that numbers do
make a difference can be made plausible if stated in this way: if everyone in
circumstances like mine gave £5 to the Bengal Relief Fund, there would be
enough to provide food, shelter, and medical care for the refugees; there is
no reason why I should give more than anyone else in the same circumstances
as I am; therefore I have no obligation to give more than £5. Each premise in
this argument is true, and the argument looks sound. It may convince us,
unless we notice that it is based on a hypothetical premise, although the
conclusion is not stated hypothetically. The argument would be sound if the
conclusion were: if everyone in circumstances like mine were to give £5, I
would have no obligation to give more than £5. If the conclusion were so
stated, however, it would be obvious that the argument has no bearing on a
situation in which it is not the case that everyone else gives £5. This, of
course, is the actual situation. It is more or less certain that not everyone
in circumstances like mine will give £5. So there will not be enough to
provide the needed food, shelter, and medical care. Therefore by giving more
than £5 I will prevent more suffering than I would if I gave just £5. It might be thought that
this argument has an absurd consequence. Since the situation appears to be
that very few people are likely to give substantial amounts, it follows that
I and everyone else in similar circumstances ought to give as much as
possible, that is, at least up to the point at which by giving more one would
begin to cause serious suffering for oneself and one's dependents - perhaps
even beyond this point to the point of marginal utility, at which by giving
more one would cause oneself and one's dependents as much suffering as one
would prevent in Bengal. If everyone does this, however, there will be more
than can be used for the benefit of the refugees, and some of the sacrifice
will have been unnecessary. Thus, if everyone does what he ought to do, the
result will not be as good as it would be if everyone did a little less than
he ought to do, or if only some do all that they ought to do. The paradox here arises
only if we assume that the actions in question - sending money to the relief
funds - are performed more or less simultaneously, and are also unexpected.
For if it is to be expected that everyone is going to contribute something,
then clearly each is not obliged to give as much as he would have been
obliged to had others not been giving too. And if everyone is not acting more
or less simultaneously, then those giving later will know how much more is
needed, and will have no obligation to give more than is necessary to reach
this amount. To say this is not to deny the principle that people in the same
circumstances have the same obligations, but to point out that the fact that
others have given, or may be expected to give, is a relevant circumstance:
those giving after it has become known that many others are giving and those
giving before are not in the same circumstances. So the seemingly absurd
consequence of the principle I have put forward can occur only if people are
in error about the actual circumstances - that is, if they think they are
giving when others are not, but in fact they are giving when others are. The
result of everyone doing what he really ought to do cannot be worse than the
result of everyone doing less than he ought to do, although the result of
everyone doing what he reasonably believes he ought to do could be. If my argument so far has
been sound, neither our distance from a preventable evil nor the number of
other people who, in respect to that evil, are in the same situation as we are,
lessens our obligation to mitigate or prevent that evil. I shall therefore
take as established the principle I asserted earlier. As I have already said,
I need to assert it only in its qualified form: if it is in our power to
prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing
anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. The outcome of this
argument is that our traditional moral categories are upset. The traditional
distinction between duty and charity cannot be drawn, or at least, not in the
place we normally draw it. Giving money to the Bengal Relief Fund is regarded
as an act of charity in our society. The bodies which collect money are known
as "charities." These organizations see themselves in this way - if
you send them a check, you will be thanked for your "generosity."
Because giving money is regarded as an act of charity, it is not thought that
there is anything wrong with not giving. The charitable man may be praised,
but the man who is not charitable is not condemned. People do not feel in any
way ashamed or guilty about spending money on new clothes or a new car
instead of giving it to famine relief. (Indeed, the alternative does not
occur to them.) This way of looking at the matter cannot be justified. When
we buy new clothes not to keep ourselves warm but to look
"well-dressed" we are not providing for any important need. We
would not be sacrificing anything significant if we were to continue to wear
our old clothes, and give the money to famine relief. By doing so, we would
be preventing another person from starving. It follows from what I have said
earlier that we ought to give money away, rather than spend it on clothes
which we do not need to keep us warm. To do so is not charitable, or
generous. Nor is it the kind of act which philosophers and theologians have
called "supererogatory" - an act which it would be good to do, but
not wrong not to do. On the contrary, we ought to give the money away, and it
is wrong not to do so. I am not maintaining that
there are no acts which are charitable, or that there are no acts which it
would be good to do but not wrong not to do. It may be possible to redraw the
distinction between duty and charity in some other place. All I am arguing
here is that the present way of drawing the distinction, which makes it an
act of charity for a man living at the level of affluence which most people
in the "developed nations" enjoy to give
money to save someone else from starvation, cannot be supported. It is beyond
the scope of my argument to consider whether the distinction should be
redrawn or abolished altogether. There would be many other possible ways of
drawing the distinction - for instance, one might decide that it is good to
make other people as happy as possible, but not wrong not to do so. Despite the limited
nature of the revision in our moral conceptual scheme which I am proposing,
the revision would, given the extent of both affluence and famine in the
world today, have radical implications. These implications may lead to
further objections, distinct from those I have already considered. I shall
discuss two of these. One objection to the
position I have taken might be simply that it is too drastic a revision of
our moral scheme. People do not ordinarily judge in the way I have suggested
they should. Most people reserve their moral condemnation for those who
violate some moral norm, such as the norm against taking another person's
property. They do not condemn those who indulge in luxury instead of giving
to famine relief. But given that I did not set out to present a morally
neutral description of the way people make moral judgments, the way people do
in fact judge has nothing to do with the validity of my conclusion. My
conclusion follows from the principle which I advanced earlier, and unless
that principle is rejected, or the arguments are shown to be unsound, I think
the conclusion must stand, however strange it appears. It might,
nevertheless, be interesting to consider why our society, and most other
societies, do judge differently from the way I have suggested they should. In
a wellknown article, J. O. Urmson
suggests that the imperatives of duty, which tell us what we must do, as
distinct from what it would be good to do but not wrong not to do, function
so as to prohibit behavior that is intolerable if men are to live together in
society. [3] This may explain the origin and continued existence of the
present division between acts of duty and acts of charity. Moral attitudes
are shaped by the needs of society, and no doubt society needs people who
will observe the rules that make social existence tolerable. From the point
of view of a particular society, it is essential to prevent violations of
norms against killing, stealing, and so on. It is quite inessential, however,
to help people outside one's own society. If this is an explanation
of our common distinction between duty and supererogation, however, it is not
a justification of it. The moral point of view requires us to look beyond the
interests of our own society. Previously, as I have already mentioned, this
may hardly have been feasible, but it is quite feasible now. From the moral
point of view, the prevention of the starvation of millions of people outside
our society must be considered at least as pressing as the upholding of
property norms within our society. It has been argued by
some writers, among them Sidgwick and Urmson, that we need to have a basic moral code which is
not too far beyond the capacities of the ordinary man, for otherwise there
will be a general breakdown of compliance with the moral code. Crudely
stated, this argument suggests that if we tell people that they ought to
refrain from murder and give everything they do not really need to famine
relief, they will do neither, whereas if we tell them that they ought to
refrain from murder and that it is good to give to famine relief but not
wrong not to do so, they will at least refrain from murder. The issue here
is: Where should we draw the line between conduct that is required and
conduct that is good although not required, so as to get the best possible
result? This would seem to be an empirical question, although a very
difficult one. One objection to the Sidgwick-Urmson
line of argument is that it takes insufficient account of the effect that
moral standards can have on the decisions we make. Given a society in which a
wealthy man who gives 5 percent of his income to famine relief is regarded as
most generous, it is not surprising that a proposal that we all ought to give
away half our incomes will be thought to be absurdly unrealistic. In a
society which held that no man should have more than enough while others have
less than they need, such a proposal might seem narrow-minded. What it is possible
for a man to do and what he is likely to do are both, I think, very greatly
influenced by what people around him are doing and expecting him to do. In
any case, the possibility that by spreading the idea that we ought to be
doing very much more than we are to relieve famine we shall bring about a
general breakdown of moral behavior seems remote. If the stakes are an end to
widespread starvation, it is worth the risk. Finally, it should be emphasized
that these considerations are relevant only to the issue of what we should
require from others, and not to what we ourselves ought to do. The second objection to
my attack on the present distinction between duty and charity is one which
has from time to time been made against utilitarianism. It follows from some
forms of utilitarian theory that we all ought, morally, to be working full
time to increase the balance of happiness over misery. The position I have
taken here would not lead to this conclusion in all circumstances, for if
there were no bad occurrences that we could prevent without sacrificing
something of comparable moral importance, my argument would have no
application. Given the present conditions in many parts of the world,
however, it does follow from my argument that we ought, morally, to be working
full time to relieve great suffering of the sort that occurs as a result of
famine or other disasters. Of course, mitigating circumstances can be adduced
- for instance, that if we wear ourselves out through overwork, we shall be
less effective than we would otherwise have been. Nevertheless, when all
considerations of this sort have been taken into account, the conclusion
remains: we ought to be preventing as much suffering as we can without
sacrificing something else of comparable moral importance. This conclusion is
one which we may be reluctant to face. I cannot see, though, why it should be
regarded as a criticism of the position for which I have argued, rather than
a criticism of our ordinary standards of behavior. Since most people are
self-interested to some degree, very few of us are likely to do everything
that we ought to do. It would, however, hardly be honest to take this as
evidence that it is not the case that we ought to do it. It may still be thought
that my conclusions are so wildly out of line with what everyone else thinks
and has always thought that there must be something wrong with the argument
somewhere. In order to show that my conclusions, while certainly contrary to
contemporary Western moral standards, would not have seemed so extraordinary
at other times and in other places, I would like to quote a passage from a
writer not normally thought of as a way-out radical, Thomas Aquinas. Now, according to the
natural order instituted by divine providence, material goods are provided
for the satisfaction of human needs. Therefore the division and appropriation
of property, which proceeds from human law, must not hinder the satisfaction
of man's necessity from such goods. Equally, whatever a man has in
superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance.
So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in
the Decretum Gratiani:
"The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry; the clothing you
shut away, to the naked; and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption
and freedom of the penniless." [4] I now want to consider a
number of points, more practical than philosophical, which are relevant to
the application of the moral conclusion we have reached. These points
challenge not the idea that we ought to be doing all we can to prevent
starvation, but the idea that giving away a great deal of money is the best
means to this end. It is sometimes said that
overseas aid should be a government responsibility, and that therefore one
ought not to give to privately run charities. Giving privately, it is said,
allows the government and the noncontributing members of society to escape
their responsibilities. This argument seems to
assume that the more people there are who give to privately organized famine
relief funds, the less likely it is that the government will take over full
responsibility for such aid. This assumption is unsupported, and does not
strike me as at all plausible. The opposite view - that if no one gives
voluntarily, a government will assume that its citizens are uninterested in
famine relief and would not wish to be forced into giving aid - seems more
plausible. In any case, unless there were a definite probability that by
refusing to give one would be helping to bring about massive government assistance,
people who do refuse to make voluntary contributions are refusing to prevent
a certain amount of suffering without being able to point to any tangible
beneficial consequence of their refusal. So the onus of showing how their
refusal will bring about government action is on those who refuse to give. I do not, of course, want
to dispute the contention that governments of affluent nations should be
giving many times the amount of genuine, no-strings-attached aid that they
are giving now. I agree, too, that giving privately is not enough, and that
we ought to be campaigning actively for entirely new standards for both
public and private contributions to famine relief. Indeed, I would sympathize
with someone who thought that campaigning was more important than giving
oneself, although I doubt whether preaching what one does not practice would
be very effective. Unfortunately, for many people the idea that "it's
the government's responsibility" is a reason for not giving which does
not appear to entail any political action either. Another, more serious
reason for not giving to famine relief funds is that until there is effective
population control, relieving famine merely postpones starvation. If we save
the This point, like the
previous one, is an argument against relieving suffering that is happening
now, because of a belief about what might happen in the future; it is unlike
the previous point in that very good evidence can be adduced in support of
this belief about the future. I will not go into the evidence here. I accept
that the earth cannot support indefinitely a population rising at the present
rate. This certainly poses a problem for anyone who thinks it important to
prevent famine. Again, however, one could accept the argument without drawing
the conclusion that it absolves one from any obligation to do anything to
prevent famine. The conclusion that should be drawn is that the best means of
preventing famine, in the long run, is population control. It would then
follow from the position reached earlier that one ought to be doing all one
can to promote population control (unless one held that all forms of
population control were wrong in themselves, or
would have significantly bad consequences). Since there are organizations
working specifically for population control, one would then support them
rather than more orthodox methods of preventing famine. A third point raised by
the conclusion reached earlier relates to the question of just how much we
all ought to be giving away. One possibility, which has already been
mentioned, is that we ought to give until we reach the level of marginal
utility - that is, the level at which, by giving more, I would cause as much
suffering to myself or my dependents as I would relieve by my gift. This
would mean, of course, that one would reduce oneself to very near the
material circumstances of a Bengali refugee. It will be recalled that earlier
I put forward both a strong and a moderate version of the principle of
preventing bad occurrences. The strong version, which required us to prevent
bad things from happening unless in doing so we would be sacrificing
something of comparable moral significance, does seem to require reducing
ourselves to the level of marginal utility. I should also say that the strong
version seems to me to be the correct one. I proposed the more moderate
version - that we should prevent bad occurrences unless, to do so, we had to
sacrifice something morally significant - only in order to show that, even on
this surely undeniable principle, a great change in our way of life is
required. On the more moderate principle, it may not follow that we ought to
reduce ourselves to the level of marginal utility, for one might hold that to
reduce oneself and one's family to this level is to cause something significantly
bad to happen. Whether this is so I shall not discuss, since, as I have said,
I can see no good reason for holding the moderate version of the principle
rather than the strong version. Even if we accepted the principle only in its
moderate form, however, it should be clear that we would have to give away
enough to ensure that the consumer society, dependent as it is on people
spending on trivia rather than giving to famine relief, would slow down and
perhaps disappear entirely. There are several reasons why this would be
desirable in itself. The value and necessity of economic growth are now being
questioned not only by conservationists, but by economists as well. [5] There
is no doubt, too, that the consumer society has had a distorting effect on
the goals and purposes of its members. Yet looking at the matter purely from
the point of view of overseas aid, there must be a limit to the extent to
which we should deliberately slow down our economy; for it might be the case
that if we gave away, say, 40 percent of our Gross National Product, we would
slow down the economy so much that in absolute terms we would be giving less
than if we gave 25 percent of the much larger GNP that we would have if we
limited our contribution to this smaller percentage. I mention this only as an
indication of the sort of factor that one would have to take into account in
working out an ideal. Since Western societies generally consider 1 percent of
the GNP an acceptable level for overseas aid, the matter is entirely academic.
Nor does it affect the question of how much an individual should give in a
society in which very few are giving substantial amounts. It is sometimes said,
though less often now than it used to be, that philosophers have no special
role to play in public affairs, since most public issues depend primarily on
an assessment of facts. On questions of fact, it is said, philosophers as
such have no special expertise, and so it has been possible to engage in
philosophy without committing oneself to any position on major public issues.
No doubt there are some issues of social policy and foreign policy about
which it can truly be said that a really expert assessment of the facts is
required before taking sides or acting, but the issue of famine is surely not
one of these. The facts about the existence of suffering are beyond dispute.
Nor, I think, is it disputed that we can do something about it, either
through orthodox methods of famine relief or through population control or
both. This is therefore an issue on which philosophers are competent to take
a position. The issue is one which faces everyone who has more money than he
needs to support himself and his dependents, or who is in a position to take
some sort of political action. These categories must include practically
every teacher and student of philosophy in the universities of the Western
world. If philosophy is to deal with matters that are relevant to both
teachers and students, this is an issue that philosophers should discuss. Discussion, though, is
not enough. What is the point of relating philosophy to public (and personal)
affairs if we do not take our conclusions seriously? In this instance, taking
our conclusion seriously means acting upon it. The philosopher will not find
it any easier than anyone else to alter his attitudes and way of life to the
extent that, if I am right, is involved in doing everything that we ought to
be doing. At the very least, though, one can make a start. The philosopher
who does so will have to sacrifice some of the benefits of the consumer
society, but he can find compensation in the satisfaction of a way of life in
which theory and practice, if not yet in harmony, are at least coming
together. Postscript The crisis in The contrast between
poverty and affluence that I wrote about is also as great as it was then.
True, the affluent nations have experienced a recession, and are perhaps not
as prosperous as they were in 1971. But the poorer nations have suffered as
least as much from the recession, in reduced government aid (because if
governments decide to reduce expenditure, they regard foreign aid as one of
the expendable items, ahead of, for instance, defense or public construction
projects) and in increased prices for goods and materials they need to buy.
In any case, compared with the difference between the affluent nations and
the poor nations, the whole recession was trifling; the poorest in the
affluent nations remained incomparably better off than the poorest in the
poor nations. So the case for aid, on both a personal and a governmental level, remains as great
now as it was in 1971, and I would not wish to change the basic argument that
I put forward then. There are, however, some
matters of emphasis that I might put differently if I were to rewrite the article, and the most important of these concerns the
population problem. I still think that, as I wrote then, the view that famine
relief merely postpones starvation unless something is done to check
population growth is not an argument against aid, it is only an argument
against the type of aid that should be given. Those who hold this view
have the same obligation to give to prevent starvation as those who do not;
the difference is that they regard assisting population control schemes as a
more effective way of preventing starvation in the long run. I would now,
however, have given greater space to the discussion of the population
problem; for I now think that there is a serious case for saying that if a
country refuses to take any steps to slow the rate of its population growth,
we should not give it aid. This is, of course, a very drastic step to take,
and the choice it represents is a horrible choice to have to make; but if,
after a dispassionate analysis of all the available information, we come to
the conclusion that without population control we will not, in the long run,
be able to prevent famine or other catastrophes, then it may be more humane
in the long run to aid those countries that are prepared to take strong
measures to reduce population growth, and to use our aid policy as a means of
pressuring other countries to take similar steps. It may be objected that
such a policy involves an attempt to coerce a sovereign nation. But since we
are not under an obligation to give aid unless that aid is likely to be effective
in reducing starvation or malnutrition, we are not under an obligation to
give aid to countries that make no effort to reduce a rate of population
growth that will lead to catastrophe. Since we do not force any nation to
accept our aid, simply making it clear that we will not give aid where it is
not going to be effective cannot properly be regarded as a form of coercion. I should also make it
clear that the kind of aid that will slow population growth is not just
assistance with the setting up of facilities for dispensing contraceptives
and performing sterilizations. It is also necessary to create the conditions
under which people do not wish to have so many children. This will involve,
among other things, providing greater economic security for people,
particularly in their old age, so that they do not need the security of a
large family to provide for them. Thus, the requirements of aid designed to
reduce population growth and aid designed to eliminate starvation are by no
means separate; they overlap, and the latter will often be a means to the
former. The obligation of the affluent is, I believe, to do both.
Fortunately, there are now many people in the foreign aid field, including
those in the private agencies, who are aware of this. One other matter that I
should now put forward slightly differently is that my argument does, of
course, apply to assistance with development, particularly agricultural
development, as well as to direct famine relief. Indeed, I think the former
is usually the better long-term investment. Although this was my view when I
wrote the article, the fact that I started from a famine situation, where the
need was for immediate food, has led some readers to suppose that the
argument is only about giving food and not about other types of aid. This is
quite mistaken, and my view is that the aid should be of whatever type is
most effective. On a more philosophical
level, there has been some discussion of the original article which has been helpful
in clarifying the issues and pointing to the areas in which more work on the
argument is needed. In particular, as John Arthur has shown in "Rights
and the Duty to Bring Aid" (included in this volume), something more
needs to be said about the notion of "moral significance." The
problem is that to give an account of this notion involves nothing less than
a full-fledged ethical theory; and while I am myself inclined toward a
utilitarian view, it was my aim in writing "Famine, Affluence, and
Morality" to produce an argument which would appeal not only to utilitarians, but also to anyone who accepted the initial
premises of the argument, which seemed to me likely to have a very wide
acceptance. So I tried to get around the need to produce a complete ethical
theory by allowing my readers to fill in their own version - within limits -
of what is morally significant, and then see what the moral consequences are.
This tactic works reasonably well with those who are prepared to agree that
such matters as being fashionably dressed are not really of moral
significance; but Arthur is right to say that people could take the opposite
view without being obviously irrational. Hence, I do not accept Arthur's
claim that the weak principle implies little or no duty of benevolence, for
it will imply a significant duty of benevolence for those who admit, as I
think most nonphilosophers and even off-guard
philosophers will admit, that they spend considerable sums on items that by
their own standards are of no moral significance. But I do agree that the
weak principle is nonetheless too weak, because it makes it too easy for the
duty of benevolence to be avoided. On the other hand, I
think the strong principle will stand, whether the notion of moral
significance is developed along utilitarian lines, or once again left to the
individual reader's own sincere judgment. In either case, I would argue
against Arthur's view that we are morally entitled to give greater weight to
our own interests and purposes simply because they are our own. This view
seems to me contrary to the idea, now widely shared by moral philosophers,
that some element of impartiality or universalizability
is inherent in the very notion of a moral judgment. (For a discussion of the
different formulations of this idea, and an indication of the extent to which
they are in agreement, see R.M. Hare, "Rules of War and Moral
Reasoning," Philosophy & Public Affairs vol. 1, no. 2, 1972.)
Granted, in normal circumstances, it may be better for everyone if we
recognize that each of us will be primarily responsible for running our own
lives and only secondarily responsible for others. This, however, is not a
moral ultimate, but a secondary principle that derives from consideration of
how a society may best order its affairs, given the limits of altruism in
human beings. Such secondary principles are, I think, swept aside by the
extreme evil of people starving to death. Notes 1. There was also a third
possibility: that 2. In view of the special
sense philosophers often give to the term, I should say that I use
"obligation" simply as the abstract noun derived from
"ought," so that "I have an obligation to" means no more,
and no less, than "I ought to." This usage is in accordance with
the definition of "ought" given by the Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary: "the general verb to express duty or obligation." I
do not think any issue of substance hangs on the way the term is used;
sentences in which I use "obligation" could all be rewritten,
although somewhat clumsily, as sentences in which a clause containing
"ought" replaces the term "obligation." 3. J. O. Urmson, "Saints and Heroes," in Essays in
Moral Philosophy, ed. Abraham I. Melden
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958), p. 214. For a related but
significantly different view see also Henry Sidgwick,
The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (London: Dover Press, 1907), pp. 220-1,
492-3. 4. Summa Theologica, II-II, Question 66, Article 7, in Aquinas,
Selected Political Writings, ed. A. P. d'Entrèves,
trans. J. G. Dawson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1948), p. 171. 5. See, for instance,
John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1967); and E. J. Mishan, The Costs of
Economic Growth (New York: Praeger, 1967). http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972----.htm |