WORLD HUNGER

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WORLD HUNGER
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Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Peter Singer (1946-)
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IMPARTIALITY AND STARVATION

• We saw earlier with Thomas Nagel that it is hard
  for a person to care about others as much as she
  cares about herself, her family, and friends, but
  that a question for ethics is how impartial we
  ought to be towards others, and how much we owe
  to other people, even ones we dont know.
• Singers paper is concerned with what each of us
  owes morally to other people, and with what our
  moral obligation is to prevent world hunger.

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PRACTICAL AND MORAL ISSUES CONCERNING STARVATION

• Singer says that mass starvation is preventable.
• But Singer says that neither individuals nor
  governments have responded in any significant way
  to the problem of world hunger.
• For Singer, the behavior of affluent individuals
  and wealthy countries regarding this issue cannot
  be ethically justified, and those who are capable
  of helping starving people should help.

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CHANGING OUR MORALITY AND OUR LIFESTYLE

• Singer says that the whole way in which 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.
• Thus, according to Singer, our morality is not
  the correct one, and our lifestyle must change in
  order to reflect a correct morality.
• That our morality needs to change, and that we
  can no longer take for granted what we take for
  granted in our lifestyle, are things which Singer
  hopes to prove in this paper.

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PRELIMINARY POINTS

• The first point Singer makes in defense of his
  position that we need to do everything possible
  to eliminate world hunger is that suffering and
  death from lack of food, shelter, and medical
  care are bad.
• He thinks that most people will agree with this,
  and he will take it that this point is accepted.
• Point number two is that we ought to prevent
  something bad from happening which it is in our
  power to prevent if we do not have to sacrifice
  something of comparable moral importance in order
  to prevent it from happening.
• Thus if I can help prevent someones starving
  without making it the case that my own family
  starves then I ought to do it.
• The health and welfare of others then is of
  comparable moral importance to my own familys
  health and welfare.

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THE MORALITY OF PREVENTION

• This second point Singer thinks is almost as
  uncontroversial as the first one, since the
  principle just asks us to prevent what is bad
  from happening to other people if we can prevent
  it without causing something else bad to happen
  which is of similar moral importance
• But the principle is really stronger than that,
  since it goes beyond asking us to prevent what we
  can and says that we ought to prevent what it is
  in our power to prevent if we can do so without
  sacrificing something of equal or like moral
  importance.
• Thus, to use Singers own example, I ought to
  save a drowning child if I have the power to do
  so. This might make me wet, muddy, and
  uncomfortable, but that is a small price to pay
  for the life of a child.

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THE PRINCIPLE OF PREVENTION I

• This moral principle we ought to prevent
  something bad from happening which we can prevent
  if we can prevent it without sacrificing anything
  morally significant, Singer calls the principle
  of preventing bad occurrences, and I will call
  the principle of prevention for short.
• And Singer says that, if this principle were
  acted upon by everyone, our lives, our society,
  and the world would change radically.
• This is because the principle of prevention, the
  principle that we ought to prevent something bad
  from happening which we can prevent if we can
  prevent the bad thing without sacrificing
  anything morally significant, does a couple of
  important things.

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THE PRINCIPLE OF PREVENTION II

• 1. The principle takes no account of proximity or
  distance. Thus it does not matter if the thing
  which I can help prevent is near or far.
• 2. It does not matter if I am the only person
  who can help, or if I am one of millions who can
  help. For instance, I might be the only one to
  happen by when a child is drowning, but I may be
  one of millions who could afford to send a little
  money to prevent starvation.

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PREVENTION AND IMPARTIALITY

• It may be a fact of human psychology that we tend
  to help those who are closer to us, but,
  according to Singer, that does not show that we
  ought to help someone closer to us rather than
  someone who is farther away.
• The principle of prevention, the principle which
  says prevent something bad from happening which
  you can if you dont have to sacrifice anything
  morally significant, is a principle of
  impartiality.
• It means that we ought to treat everyone equally,
  that we cannot discriminate against a person
  simply because she is far away.

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PROXIMITY, DISTANCE, AND MORAL JUDGEMENT I

• Singer admits that, if we are in a better
  position to judge what those people who are close
  to us need, then this would be a good reason to
  help those who are closest to us first.
• But he also notes that mass communication has
  changed the relation of modern man to the rest of
  the world. Now it is easy to get the sounds and
  pictures of mass starvation in foreign countries
  from newspapers, television, and the Internet.
• Kinds of mass communication have made the world
  into Marshall McLuhans global village, and so
  have changed our moral relation to the rest of
  the world.

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PROXIMITY, DISTANCE, AND MORAL JUDGEMENT II

• Famine relief agencies can get help to the people
  abroad who need it almost as easily as we could
  get help to someone on our own block. And, for
  Singer, that means that we have no excuse not to
  help those far removed from us.
• Accordingly, he says that There would seem,
  therefore, to be no possible justification for
  discriminating on geographical grounds.

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NUMBERS, PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES, AND MORAL
OBLIGATION

• Singer says that, although there is a
  psychological difference between being the only
  person who can prevent something bad from
  happening, and being one of a million who can
  prevent something bad from happening, there is no
  moral difference between these cases.
• Should I feel less obligated to help the drowning
  child if other people are as close to her as I
  am?
• Singer says of course not, and this he thinks
  shows the absurdity of the view that numbers
  lessen moral obligation.
• Singer says that most of the major evils in the
  world - poverty, overpopulation, and pollution -
  are problems in which everyone is almost equally
  involved.

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DUTY AND CHARITY I

• The outcome of the principle of prevention, the
  principle that we ought to prevent something bad
  from happening which we can prevent if we can
  prevent the bad thing without sacrificing
  anything morally significant, is that we lose the
  traditional distinction between duty and charity.
• Thus, traditionally we think of giving as
  charitable, and, as charitable, we do not think
  that there is anything wrong with not giving.

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DUTY AND CHARITY II

• But on Singers principle of prevention there is
  something wrong with not giving, and giving is
  now a duty and not an instance of charity.
• A persons spending money on things which she
  does not need rather than giving it to help
  prevent something bad from happening cannot be
  justified, and is immoral on Singers principle.
• We have a duty to give money away for a good
  cause when we do not need it for ourselves or our
  family.

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CHALLENGES TO SINGER

• Some people might object to Singers point of
  view by saying that it is too radical, that we do
  not think about morality the way he maintains
  that we should. For instance, we do not condemn
  those people who do not give money to help
  prevent something bad.
• But Singer says that whether we do or do not
  judge people in this way has nothing to do with
  the legitimacy of his moral principle that we
  ought to prevent something bad from happening
  which we can prevent without sacrificing
  something of comparable moral importance, and so
  is not really an objection to it.
• Someone else might object that, since we are all
  self-interested to some degree, very few people
  will be doing all that they ought to do to
  prevent bad things from happening to others.
• But Singer says, even if this is true, that this
  is not an argument against his principle.

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APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF PREVENTION I

• Just how much money should we all be giving away
  to prevent bad things from happening?
• For Singer, we ought to give away as much as we
  can before we would begin to suffer ourselves, or
  before we cause the bad condition for ourselves
  through our giving that our giving is designed to
  eliminate for others.
• Thus we do not want to cause in ourselves and our
  dependents the suffering which we are trying to
  help others avoid.

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APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF PREVENTION II

• Singer says that each person should give until
  she reaches the point of marginal utility. This
  is the point at which giving away more money
  would result in the same kind of suffering for
  you and your dependents that the giving is
  designed to prevent in others.
• Singers principle of prevention - the principle
  which says that we ought to prevent from
  happening something bad which we can prevent
  unless we would sacrifice something of a
  comparable moral significance - seems to require
  our giving to help others until we reach the
  level of marginal utility.

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QUESTIONS FOR SINGER

• If we balk at this, what might be the reasons?
  Egoism? Partiality for some people over others?
• If we feel no duty to hold to Singers principle
  why might that be? Could we feel that, by
  investing money in ourselves and our dependents,
  we might be better improving the world than by
  giving our money away?
• Should we give until we reach the level of
  marginal utility if our musically gifted daughter
  wants a new piano? If our athletic son wants to
  go to summer basketball camp? If my wife is
  dying of cancer and wants to take a last trip to
  Europe?

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A MORE MODERATE VERSION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF
PREVENTION

• Singer also has a more moderate version of his
  principle, and that is that we give away money to
  help others, but only if in doing so we sacrifice
  nothing of moral significance, and so need not
  give until we reach the level of marginal
  utility.
• Some people might think that the more moderate
  version is preferable, since they might think
  that it is bad for a person to reduce himself and
  his family to the level of marginal utility.
• Singer prefers the strong version, but he says
  that even the moderate version would radically
  change things, and might cause a consumer society
  like ours to be radically affected, and perhaps
  even to disappear.

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CONSUMER SOCIETIES

• The effect of even the moderate version of the
  principle of prevention would have a great impact
  on consumer societies such as ours. This effect
  would cause the consumer society to slow down
  and perhaps disappear entirely.
• The disappearance of a consumer society, which
  includes spending money on trivia rather than
  giving to famine relief would be a good thing,
  according to Singer.
• It would be good because the values of a consumer
  society - buy yourself a life - have had a
  distorting effect on the goals and purposes of
  its members.

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PRUDENCE IN GIVING

• Having said what he says about consumer
  societies, Singer nevertheless recognizes that we
  would have to consider carefully how much it
  would be intelligent to give away as a percentage
  of our Gross National Product (the total output
  of a nations goods and services for a period of
  time, usually a year).
• This is because, if we gave away too great a
  percentage of the GNP, then it might slow down
  the economy so much that we end up giving away
  less than we would have if we had given a smaller
  percentage.

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THE IMPACT OF PHILOSOPHERS ON LIFE

• Ending starvation is something important which
  Singer thinks philosophers can help to do.
• And their assistance can come in the form of
  showing, as Singer himself attempts to show in
  this article, that we have an obligation to
  prevent misery and to help others when it is
  within our power to do so.
• Accordingly Singer says that people ought to give
  money to help others that they themselves do not
  need in order to live decent lives.

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World Hunger and Moral Obligation the Case
Against Singer
John Arthur
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NORMAL ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT OUR MORAL OBLIGATIONS

• Arthur writes from the perspective of those of us
  who live in wealthy industrial nations and have
  more than many others in other parts of the
  world.
• And he says that such people normally think that
  our money is ours to do with what we please.
  This is because we earned it, and so feel that we
  are under no obligation to give whatever we do
  not need to someone else, especially to someone
  we have never met in some other part of the
  world.

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SINGERS DISAGREEMENT WITH THIS

• This is what Singer thinks is wrong.
• Singer thinks that we are being immoral if we do
  not help those who could benefit from our help by
  simply doing without things which we and our
  family do not need.
• For Singer, it is morally wrong for us not to
  prevent an evil like starvation if we have the
  means to do it.

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SINGERS BASIC PRINCIPLES

• Recall that Singer says that we have a moral
  obligation to help others who are suffering due
  to two basic principles
• 1. Suffering and dying from lack of food,
  shelter and medical care are bad.
• 2. We should prevent bad things from happening
  to others which it is in our power to prevent
  when doing so will not cause us to sacrifice
  anything of comparable moral significance.
• This second principle I have called the
  principle of prevention, and Arthur calls the
  greater moral evil rule.

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APPLICATION OF THE SECOND PRINCIPLE I

• The second principle applied to world hunger
  means that we ought to give away money until we
  reach the level of marginal utility, or until we
  reach the level at which further giving will, or
  could, cause a comparable evil to happen to us or
  to those who depend on us.
• To give beyond the point of marginal utility
  would mean that we would sacrifice something of
  comparable moral significance, such as our own
  health, or the health of those, such as our
  children, who depend on us, in order to help the
  people we are trying to help.

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APPLICATION OF THE SECOND PRINCIPLE II

• Arthur says that Singers greater moral evil rule
  means that people are entitled to keep their
  surplus earnings if there is no way for them to
  prevent a greater evil by giving them away.
• Although he does not say so, the world being full
  of problems which money can be used to solve, it
  must be recognized that people would also be
  morally entitled to all of their earnings if no
  malady existed which could be removed by giving
  their surplus earnings to aid in its removal.

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APPLICATION OF THE SECOND PRINCIPLE III

• Arthur says that the greater moral evil rule
  would suggest that, if we spend money on
  ourselves for something which we do not need,
  then we are treating our own special interests as
  being more important than a persons life.
• And most people would think that a persons life
  is more important than a trip to Cancun or a new
  car if the old one still runs.

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MORAL EQUALITY I

• Arthur points out that we have a sense of moral
  equality as part of our moral code. Thus if I am
  in pain and you are in pain, our moral equality
  means that my pain is not more important to
  remove than yours. It further indicates that, if
  I am happy and you are happy, then it is not more
  important that my happiness continue than yours.
• The principle of moral equality means then that
  like amounts of suffering (or happiness) are of
  equal significance, no matter who is experiencing
  them.

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MORAL EQUALITY II

• Moral equality is taken by many to be an
  objective principle which is true for all.
  Accordingly, no one has a unique status in this
  regard, and so your pain is just as evil as the
  presidents and your happiness just as important
  as his.
• Arthur also recognizes that our sense of moral
  equality means that we ought to give equal
  consideration to needs which are equally serious.
  And this means that removing your hunger is as
  important as removing mine.
• This then seems to lead to Singers greater moral
  evil rule that we ought to help eliminate those
  bad things from happening to people when it would
  not cause us to experience something of similar
  badness.

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MORAL EQUALITY III

• Arthur Equality, in the sense of giving equal
  consideration to equally serious needs, is part
  of our moral code.
• Arthur And so we are led, quite rightly I
  think, to the conclusion that we should prevent
  harm to others if in doing so we do not sacrifice
  anything of comparable moral importance.
• However, Arthur says there is also another side
  to the coin which is of moral significance, one
  which Singer ignores . . . the notion of
  entitlements.

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ENTITLEMENTS AND THE GREATER MORAL EVIL RULE I

• Generally, an entitlement is something to which
  we are entitled, and to say that a person is
  entitled to something means that he or she has a
  right or claim to that thing. For instance, we
  are entitled to our eyes, our ears, our legs, our
  organs, and so forth.
• Entitlements are divided into rights and desert,
  and where a right may or may not be a natural
  right, and desert is just reward or punishment.
• For Arthur, a problem with Singers greater moral
  evil - prevent what evil it is in your power to
  prevent without your sacrificing anything of
  comparable moral significance - is that it would
  seem to demand that we do things like give an eye
  or a kidney to a stranger.

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ENTITLEMENTS AND THE GREATER MORAL EVIL RULE II

• A person can live with one kidney or one eye, and
  he would only be sacrificing something of
  comparable moral significance - his life - if he
  gave both of his kidneys to someone who has none,
  and he would only be sacrificing something of
  comparable moral significance - his sight - if he
  gave both of his eyes to a blind person.
• Since we can live with one kidney and see with
  one eye, it looks to Arthur that, according to
  Singers principle of prevention, we are
  obligated to give an eye or a kidney to someone
  who needs them if we will be no worse off than
  when we had two of each.

36
NATURAL RIGHTS I

• Singer might respond here that each of us has a
  natural right to our organs, and that a second
  organ is not to be viewed as a surplus item to be
  given away like additional money.
• A natural right is a moral right which is said to
  belong to humans by nature, or to the kind of
  being called human being in virtue of being a
  human being, and so does not rest on custom or
  convention, but on self-evident principles or
  fundamental laws of reason.
• Thus, for Thomas Hobbes, man has a natural right
  to life for John Locke, life, liberty, and
  property are natural rights and, in the
  Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson
  names life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
  as natural rights.

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NATURAL RIGHTS II

• Jeremy Bentham was opposed to the notion of
  natural rights and called them nonsense on
  stilts. There are no rights as such within
  nature or guaranteed by nature as opposed to
  rights which are created by men in the form of
  laws. Thus there is nothing but custom and
  convention.
• The notion of self-evidence (mentioned above in
  relation to the notion of natural rights) is
  difficult to evaluate and is subject to change.
  Also, as what is reasonable to one thinker may
  not be reasonable to another, there may be a
  problem in resting a natural right on reason.

38
NATURAL RIGHTS III

• Still, it may be hard not to think of some rights
  as natural, like the Kantian right to be treated
  as an end in oneself. That is, this would be
  considered to be a natural right since it is
  either self-evident or a fundamental law of
  reason, and that it is not merely arrived at by
  convention.
• Singer might say that each of us has a natural
  right to our organs, and that a second organ is
  not to be viewed as a surplus item to be given
  away like additional money.
• In addition, it might be noted that money and
  organs are not quite the same. What if we lose
  the second eye or kidney? We do not have the
  power to make another, but we do have the power
  usually to make more money as we have in the
  past.

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NATURAL RIGHTS IV

• Singer might also say that we have an obligation
  in dying to give our undamaged organs to anyone
  who needs them, but not while we are alive.
• Arthur recognizes that a basic right to our own
  body parts is part of our moral code. Thus it
  is our body rather than someone elses, and we
  are not obligated to give up a second organ while
  living, although we may if we choose.
• Arthur To sacrifice a kidney for a stranger is
  to do more than is required, its heroic.

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NEGATIVE RIGHTS

• Arthur notes that moral rights are normally
  divided into negative rights and positive rights.
• Negative rights are rights of noninterference.
  We have the right not to be interfered with in
  certain ways, and since we are talking about the
  right not to be interfered with, the right is
  called negative.
• For instance, we have the negative right not to
  be harmed or killed by another, not to have our
  property taken, not to have our privacy breached,
  etc.

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POSITIVE RIGHTS

• Whereas negative rights are rights of
  noninterference, positive rights are rights of
  recipience.
• For instance, you have a positive right to be
  paid by your employer - to receive money - since
  he has agreed to pay you for work performed. And
  you have a positive right to receive a degree
  from the university for completing you degree
  requirements, since this is what the school
  promises to give you in exchange for money and
  academic work.

42
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE RIGHTS I

• Negative rights are natural. What natural rights
  you have depends on what kind of being you are.
  Thus human beings have a natural right to their
  bodies but cows do not, at least in our culture.
• This is an example of how biology makes a
  difference to morality, which is an important
  issues in such topics in applied ethics as
  abortion and animal rights.
• Positive rights are not natural. Instead, they
  depend on non-natural things like agreements made
  in good faith between people.

43
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE RIGHTS II

• Does a stranger in need typically have either a
  positive (contractual or agreed to by different
  people) or negative right (natural, depending on
  what kind of being you are) to be helped by
  another?
• Arthur says no. Such a right, if it existed,
  would be positive. However, positive rights
  depend on contracts or promises made between
  people, and no such agreement has been entered
  into between us and a stranger in need.

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POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE RIGHTS III

• But while Arthur says that moral rights are
  factors to be considered in what we owe or do not
  owe to others, he also says that it is not the
  only thing which needs to be considered, and he
  recognizes that our moral code expects us to help
  someone in need in addition to respecting
  positive and negative rights.
• What Arthur wants to emphasize, against Singer,
  is that we are entitled to invoke our own rights
  as justification for not giving to distant
  strangers or when the cost to us is substantial,
  as when we give up an eye or kidney.

45
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE DESERT

• In addition to being entitled to positive and
  negative rights, humans are entitled to desert -
  just reward, which is positive, or just
  punishment, which is negative.
• An example of a positive desert - something which
  I deserve - is the money which I earn from
  working, some of which may be more than I need.
• I am entitled to the reward of my hard work, but
  are you? If I earn more than you do because I
  work hard and you do nothing, am I obligated to
  give some of my extra money to you when you have
  done nothing to earn it?
• Deserved punishment for a crime is an example of
  a negative desert.

46
THE GREATER MORAL EVIL PRINCIPLE AND ENTITLEMENTS
I

• Arthur says that our moral code considers both
  Singers greater moral evil principle and
  entitlements.
• The greater moral evil principle emphasizes human
  equality. This means that everyones suffering
  is equally bad, and everyones happiness is
  equally good.
• The importance of entitlements means that we are
  not just our brothers keeper - where this
  extends perhaps to all humanity - but we are
  entitled to consider our own interests in certain
  respects.

47
THE GREATER MORAL EVIL PRINCIPLE AND ENTITLEMENTS
II

• The greater moral evil principle also emphasizes
  impartiality.
• It says to look objectively at the consequences
  of our actions, and in looking at the
  consequences of our actions looks to the future.
• When we look at our entitlements our attention
  is directed to the past, since whether we have a
  right to something depends on how we came to
  possess them.
• For instance, we came to the right to our eyes in
  the past since our negative natural right to them
  came with our birth, which occurred in the past,
  and our non-natural positive right to receive a
  degree is backward looking since we did the
  course work to earn it in the past.

48
DESERT AND THE PAST

• Arthur points out that desert, like rights, is
  also backward-looking.
• A positive desert - like being given an Olympic
  medal - looks to the past for what we did to earn
  the medal - beating everyone in the 100 meter
  dash.
• A negative desert - like being sentenced to 10
  years in jail - looks to the past for what we did
  to deserve this punishment - like robbing a bank

49
PRINCIPLES OF COMMON MORALITY

• Arthur Our commonly shared morality requires
  that we ignore neither consequences nor
  entitlements, neither the future results of our
  actions nor relevant events in the past.
• Arthur also says that our common moral code
  encourages people to help others in need,
  especially when its a friend or someone we are
  close to geographically, and when the cost is not
  significant.
• But Arthur also notes that our moral code gives
  weight to rights and desert, so that we are not
  usually obligated to give to strangers.

50
PROXIMITY AND MORALITY

• Arthur says that charity is encouraged by our
  common morality, especially helping our local
  needy before those in a distant country.
• Why do we tend to want to help those who are
  closest to us? Is it because, in the case of
  friendship, we act out of feelings which we do
  not have for strangers? And is it because, in
  the case of those nearest to us, that we can see
  the results of our help, and think that they
  would be more able to return the favor to us than
  a distant person?

51
REFORMING COMMON MORALITY I

• Since this is how our moral code works, Singer
  can be seen to defend the idea of reforming our
  moral code, and making it so that we should feel
  obligated to help those in need, including
  strangers, and to give up the idea that we are
  entitled to money which we dont need.
• Arthur recognizes that moral rules change, and
  that we have to allow for the possibility of
  moral change, especially replacing inferior
  moral laws with better ones.
• Should we then see that our notion of
  entitlements is an inferior part of our current
  moral code?

52
REFORMING COMMON MORALITY II

• That is what Singer would say.
• But Arthur notes that the notion of entitlements
  is an important part of our moral code, and that
  entitlements have to do with fairness, justice,
  and respect.
• Thus we are entitled to a good grade if we earn
  it, and if we earn it but are not given it, then
  that is unfair.

53
REFORMING COMMON MORALITY III

• We are entitled to punish a criminal for what he
  did - a negative desert - and not to punish
  someone for a wrongdoing would not be just.
• And we are entitled to the natural negative right
  of our bodies, and our privacy, and not to
  recognize these is not to respect persons.
• Arthur thinks these things should be recognized
  by morality as important as the equality of
  persons.

54
REFORMING COMMON MORALITY IV

• Arthur says that he may not be able to convince
  someone who does not think this way, someone who
  wonders why justice, fairness, and respect for
  persons, as they concern entitlements, are more
  important than equality and the obligation to
  help strangers.
• So he and Singer may have reached a point where
  they simply disagree with one another.

55
MORALITY AND PRACTICALITY I

• Arthur says that it is extremely important for
  ethicists to recognize that the moral code it is
  rational for us to support must be practical it
  must actually work.
• Accordingly, all the ethical theory in the world
  is not worth a hill of beans unless it
  facilitates human interaction and helps to
  produce results which people want.
• Further, for a moral code to be practical most
  people must support it.

56
MORALITY AND PRACTICALITY II

• It is also important for moral theory to
  recognize the nature and limitations of human
  beings.
• Ethics should not assume, for instance, that
  people are less selfish than they are. It should
  instead be realistic about the degree of our
  self-interest.
• Arthur Rules that would work only for angels
  are not the ones it is rational to support for
  humans.

57
MORALITY, RATIONALITY, AND KNOWLEDGE

• A moral code should also not assume too much
  about our rationality - that we are more
  objective than in fact we are.
• We tend to lose the objectivity which we expect
  of others when we consider our own case and our
  own interests. Countries do this too, a nations
  diplomacy is often guided by what it is in the
  interests of that nation to pursue.
• And we have to recognize that we do not have all
  the facts about what would make for a better
  moral situation. We are not in the position of
  an ideal observer with ideal knowledge, but we
  often must work with only our limited knowledge
  from our limited perspective, and we make
  mistakes.

58
ARTHURS CONCLUSIONS I

• For Arthur as opposed to Singer, it is reasonable
  to expect a person to help others only when
  there is no substantial cost to themselves, that
  is, when what they are sacrificing would not mean
  significant reduction in their own or their
  familys level of happiness. (His italics.)
• But someone such as Singer might maintain that we
  need some additional considerations here. For
  instance, what if losing a billion dollars would
  significantly reduce the happiness of Bill Gates
  at the same time that it could prevent the
  starvation of thousands? He still has 39 billion
  left.

59
ARTHURS CONCLUSIONS II

• For Arthur, a persons entitlements can outweigh
  another persons need. And this would be the
  case when sacrificing the entitlement, like
  earned money, for the welfare of another led to
  the persons unhappiness.
• But Arthur also says that, if what is at stake
  is trivial, . . . then an ideal moral code would
  not allow rights to override the greater evil
  which can be prevented.
• Is Gates giving up a billion dollars trivial
  since he is still left with the majority of his
  net worth?

60
ARTHURS CONCLUSIONS III

• Arthur thinks that our current moral code
  reflects the thinking that it is reasonable to
  expect one person to help another only when there
  is no substantial cost to the person who is
  helping the other.
• In our common morality we tend to blame people
  who are selfish and do not help others when doing
  so would be a small inconvenience to them, at the
  same time that we do not expect people to make
  large sacrifices to help distant strangers.
• Accordingly, Arthur suggests that an ideal moral
  code may not be that much different from our own
  an ideal code which recognized human nature and
  human intelligence.