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that not aiding the poor is not to be condemned as murdering |
them; it could, however, be on a par with killing someone as |
a result of reckless driving, which is serious enough. Finally the |
difficulty of completely discharging the duty of saving all one |
possibly can makes it inappropriate to blame those who fall |
228 |
Rich and Poor |
short of this target as we blame those who kill; but this does |
not show that the act itself is less serious. Nor does it indicate |
anything about those who, far from saving all they possibly can, |
make no effort to save anyone. |
These conclusions suggest a new approach. Instead of attempting |
to deal with the contrast between affluence and poverty |
by comparing not saving with deliberate killing, let us |
consider afresh whether we have an obligation to assist those |
whose lives are in danger, and if so, how this obligation applies |
to the present world situation. |
THE OBLIGATION TO ASSIST |
The Argument for an Obligation to Assist |
The path from the library at my university to the humanities |
lecture theatre passes a shallow ornamental pond. Suppose that |
on my way to give a lecture I notice that a small child has fallen |
in and is in danger of drowning. Would anyone deny that I |
ought to wade in and pull the child out? This will mean getting |
my clothes muddy and either cancelling my lecture or delaying |
it until I can find something dry to change into; but compared |
with the avoidable death of a child this is insignificant. |
A plausible principle that would support the judgment that I |
ought to pull the child out is this: if it is in our power to prevent |
something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing |
anything of comparable moral significance, we ought to do it. |
This principle seems uncontroversial. It will obviously win the |
assent of consequentialists; but non-consequentialists should |
accept it too, because the injunction to prevent what is bad |
applies only when nothing comparably significant is at stake. |
Thus the principle cannot lead to the kinds of actions of which |
non-consequentialists strongly disapprove - serious violations |
of individual rights, injustice, broken promises, and so on. If |
non-consequentialists regard any of these as comparable in |
229 |
Practical Ethics |
moral significance to the bad thing that is to be prevented, they |
will automatically regard the principle as not applying in those |
cases in which the bad thing can only be prevented by violating |
rights, doing injustice, breaking promises, or whatever else is |
at stake. Most non-consequentialists hold that we ought to prevent |
what is bad and promote what is good. Their dispute with |
consequentialists lies in their insistence that this is not the sole |
ultimate ethical principle: that it is an ethical principle is not |
denied by any plausible ethical theory. |
Nevertheless the uncontroversial appearance of the principle |
that we ought to prevent what is bad when we can do so without |
sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance is deceptive. |
If it were taken seriously and acted upon, our lives and |
our world would be fundamentally changed. For the principle |
applies, not just to rare situations in which one can save a child |
from a pond, but to the everyday situation in which we can |
assist those living in absolute poverty. In saying this I assume |
that absolute poverty, with its hunger and malnutrition, lack of |
shelter, illiteracy, disease, high infant mortality, and low life |
expectancy, is a bad thing. And I assume that it is within the |
power of the affluent to reduce absolute poverty, without sacrificing |
anything of comparable moral significance. If these two |
assumptions and the principle we have been discussing are correct, |
we have an obligation to help those in absolute poverty |
that is no less strong than our obligation to rescue a drowning |
child from a pond. Not to help would be wrong, whether or |
not it is intrinsically equivalent to killing. Helping is not, as |
conventionally thought, a charitable act that it is praiseworthy |
to do, but not wrong to omit; it is something that everyone |
ought to do. |
This is the argument for an obligation to assist. Set out more |
formally, it would look like this. |
First premise: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing |
anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it. |
230 |
Rich and Poor |
Second premise: Absolute poverty is bad. |
Third premise: There is some absolute poverty we can prevent |
without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance. |
Conclusion: We ought to prevent some absolute poverty. |
The first premise is the substantive moral premise on which |
the argument rests, and I have tried to show that it can be |
accepted by people who hold a variety of ethical positions. |
The second premise is unlikely to be challenged. Absolute |
poverty is, as McNamara put it, 'beneath any reasonable definition |
of human decency' and it would be hard to find a plausible |
ethical view that did not regard it as a bad thing. |
The third premise is more controversial, even though it is |
cautiously framed. It claims only that some absolute poverty |
can be prevented without the sacrifice of anything of comparable |
moral significance. It thus avoids the objection that any aid I |
can give is just 'drops in the ocean' for the point is not whether |
my personal contribution will make any noticeable impression |
on world poverty as a whole (of course it won't) but whether |
it will prevent some poverty. This is all the argument needs to |
sustain its conclusion, since the second premise says that any |
absolute poverty is bad, and not merely the total amount of |
absolute poverty. If without sacrificing anything of comparable |
moral significance we can provide just one family with the |
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