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makes my decision no less reprehensible than it would have |
been had the contaminant had more readily detectable, though |
equally fatal, effects. |
2. The lack of certainty that by giving money I could save a |
life does reduce the wrongness of not giving, by comparison |
with deliberate killing; but it is insufficient to show that not |
giving is acceptable conduct. The motorist who speeds through |
pedestrian crossings, heedless of anyone who might be on them, |
is not a murderer. She may never actually hit a pedestrian; yet |
what she does is very wrong indeed. |
3. The notion of responsibility for acts rather than omissions |
is more puzzling. On the one hand, we feel ourselves to be |
under a greater obligation to help those whose misfortunes we |
have caused. (It is for this reason that advocates of overseas aid |
often argue that Western nations have created the poverty of |
third world nations, through forms of economic exploitation |
that go back to the colonial system.) On the other hand, any |
consequentialist would insist that we are responsible for all the |
consequences of our actions, and if a consequence of my spending |
money on a luxury item is that someone dies, I am responsible |
for that death. It is true that the person would have |
died even if I had never existed, but what is the relevance of |
that? The fact is that I do exist, and the consequentialist will |
say that our responsibilities derive from the world as it is, not |
as it might have been. |
One way of making sense of the non-consequentialist view |
of responsibility is by basing it on a theory of rights of the kind |
proposed by John Locke or, more recently, Robert Nozick. If |
everyone l:J.as a right to life, and this right is a right against others |
who might threaten my life, but not a right to assistance from |
others when my life is in danger, then we can understand the |
feeling that we are responsible for acting to kill but not for |
226 |
Rich and Poor |
omitting to save. The former violates the rights of others, the |
latter does not. |
Should we accept such a theory of rights? If we build up our |
theory of rights by imagining, as Locke and Nozick do, individuals |
living independently from each other in a 'state of nature', |
it may seem natural to adopt a conception of rights in which |
as long as each leaves the other alone, no rights are violated. I |
might, on this view, quite properly have maintained my independent |
existence if I had wished to do so. So if I do not make |
you any worse off than you would have been if I had had |
nothing at all to do with you, how can I have violated your |
rights? But why start from such an unhistorical, abstract and |
ultimately inexplicable idea as an independent individual? Our |
ancestors were - like other primates - social beings long before |
they were human beings, and could not have developed the |
abilities and capacities of human beings if they had not been |
social beings first. In any case, we are not, now, isolated individuals. |
So why should we assume that rights must be restricted |
to rights against interference? We might, instead, adopt the view |
that taking rights to life seriously is incompatible with standing |
by and watching people die when one could easily save them. |
4. What of the difference in motivation? That a person does |
not positively wish for the death of another lessens the severity |
of the blame she deserves; but not by as much as our present |
attitudes to giving aid suggest. The behaviour of the speeding |
motorist is again comparable, for such motorists usually have |
no desire at all to kill anyone. They merely enjoy speeding and |
are indifferent to the consequences. Despite their lack of malice, |
those who kill with cars deserve not only blame but also severe |
punishment. |
5. Finally, the fact that to avoid killing people is normally not |
difficult, whereas to save all one possibly could save is heroic, |
must make an important difference to our attitude to failure to |
do what the respective principles demand. Not to kill is a min- |
227 |
Practical Ethics |
imum standard of acceptable conduct we can require of everyone; |
to save all one possibly could is not something that can |
realistically be required, especially not in societies accustomed |
to giving as little as ours do. Given the generally accepted standards, |
people who give, say, $1,000 a year to an overseas aid |
organisation are more aptly praised for above average generosity |
than blamed for giving less than they might. The appropriateness |
of praise and blame is, however, a separate issue from the rightness |
or wrongness of actions. The former evaluates the agent: |
the latter evaluates the action. Perhaps many people who give |
$1,000 really ought to give at least $5,000, but to blame them |
for not giving more could be counterproductive. It might make |
them feel that what is required is too demanding, and if one is |
going to be blamed anyway, one might as well not give anything |
at all. |
(That an ethic that put saving all one possibly can on the |
same footing as not killing would be an ethic for saints or heroes |
should not lead us to assume that the alternative must be an |
ethic that makes it obligatory not to kill, but puts us under no |
obligation to save anyone. There are positions in between these |
extremes, as we shall soon see.) |
Here is a summary of the five differences that normally exist |
between killing and allowing to die, in the context of absolute |
poverty and overseas aid. The lack of an identifiable victim is |
of no moral significance, though it may play an important role |
in explaining our attitudes. The idea that we are directly responsible |
for those we kill, but not for those we do not help, |
depends on a questionable notion of responsibility and may |
need to be based on a controversial theory of rights. Differences |
in certainty and motivation are ethically significant, and show |
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