The contrast between these peoples and the populations of rich nations is a stark one. In the poor nations of South Asia, the mortality rate among children under the age of 5 is more than 170 deaths per thousand, while in Sweden it is fewer than 10. In sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy is 50 years, while in Japan it is 80. These contrasts raise the question of whether people living in rich nations have a moral obligation to aid those in poor nations.
Some ethicists argue that rich nations have no obligation to aid poor nations.
Our moral duty, they claim, is always to act in ways that will maximize human happiness and minimize human suffering. In the long run, aiding poor nations will produce far more suffering than it will alleviate. Nations with the highest incidence of poverty also have the highest birthrates. Providing aid to people in such countries will only allow more of them to survive and reproduce, placing ever greater demands on the world's limited food supply. And as the populations of these countries swell, more people will be forced onto marginal and environmentally fragile lands, leading to widespread land degradation, further reducing the land available for food production.