Why some defenders of positive duties serve a bad theoretical cocktail

ABSTRACT

In the literature on global justice, there has been a lengthy debate about what the world’s rich owe to the world’s poor. Some have argued that rich individuals have positive duties of beneficence to help the poor, while others have argued that rich individuals only have negative duties not to harm them. A common objection to the former view is that once it is accepted that positive duties exist, fulfilling these duties will be overdemanding since rich individuals can almost always help a little more. Some have tried to overcome this overdemandingness objection by setting cut-off points for how demanding morality is. In this article, we aim to show that it is problematic to be committed to the following propositions: (1) Positive duties to aid exist; (2) The overdemandingness objection is a serious challenge for anyone who accepts that positive duties to aid exist; and (3) Setting cut-off points for how demanding morality is constitutes a plausible way to overcome the overdemandingness objection. Showing that a commitment to (1), (2) and (3) is problematic is of interest given that several influential theorists are committed to this set of views. This set of views is simply a bad theoretical cocktail.

KEYWORDS:

• Global justice
• poverty
• positive duties
• cut-off points
• Peter Singer

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following: Two anonymous reviewers, the editors Christine Koggel and Eric Palmer from the Journal of Global Ethics, Jens Damgaard Thaysen, Kim Angell, Rasmus Uhrenfeldt, Andreas Albertsen, Jason Brennan, Robert Huseby, as well as audiences at Nanyang Technical University (Singapore), Freie University (Berlin) and Aarhus University.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In this article, we use the terms ‘duty of beneficence’, ‘duty to help’ and ‘duty to aid’ interchangeably.

2 See (Brandt 1979).

3 As of 2015, 10 percent of the world’s population lived on less than US$1.90 a day. See: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview (accessed October 7, 2020). In comparison, the richest 3% of people in the world hold 20% of the total collective household income, according to data gathered by Gallup from 2006 to 2012 (Gallup 2014). The Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) provides funding for long-lasting insecticide-treated net (LLIN) distributions (for protection against malaria) in developing countries. There is strong evidence that distributing LLINs reduces child mortality and malaria cases. The cost to purchase and distribute an AMF-funded net is US$4.53 or US$4.29 excluding in-kind contributions from governments. See: https://www.givewell.org/charities/amf (accessed October 7, 2020).

4 See e.g. Singer (2009).

5 We take this to be textual evidence that Unger implicitly accepts (2). After all, on the assumption that Unger accepts (2), it is easy to see why rich individuals should feel fortunate about the fact that there are limits to how demanding morality is. They should feel fortunate about this fact because it diminishes the plausibility of a moral theory/moral idea if this theory/idea is so demanding that it requires that rich individuals literally have to give up our lives or body parts to lessen others’ serious suffering.

6 It is clear from Miller’s text that the ‘more moderate principle of general beneficence’ is a principle grounded in a positive, as opposed to a negative, duty to assist others. Miller discusses Singer’s ‘radical conclusion’. This is the conclusion that everyone has a duty to give up all luxuries and frills and donate the savings to help those in dire need (unless the purchase of a luxury or frill is part of a strategy that makes him or her more effective in relieving dire need). According to Miller ‘People find this argument frightening, and rightly so’ (Miller 2012, 42).

7 An anonymous reviewer maintains that the global justice literature has an almost exclusive emphasis on duties. We agree. Note, for example, how the Kant-Ross Principle focuses exclusively on duties. However, it would require a separate article to decide whether this feature of the literature is problematic.

8 In the final section of the article, we defend in detail our view that these situations are identical in all morally relevant respects.

9 See Sonderholm (2013) for a detailed discussion of Singer’s proposal. Singer says explicitly that people who donate according to the scheme are fulfilling their moral obligations (Singer 2009, 152).

10 Recall the following quote:

So you must keep cutting back on unnecessary spending, and donating what you save, until you have reduced yourself to the point where if you give any more, you will be sacrificing something nearly as important as a child’s life … (Singer 2009, 18)

11 Again, this interpretation might not give a correct depiction of what Singer really thinks. Is it a problem for us if this interpretation gives an incorrect depiction of Singer’s real views? No. Singer’s published ideas about how an income bracket scheme sets limits for how much rich individuals ought to donate to the fight against global poverty can just be seen as a paradigm example of a position that involves acceptance of (1), (2) and (3).

12 We take no stance on whether physical distance to someone in dire need, that one can assist with no significant cost to oneself, is itself a morally relevant factor. However, we note that proponents commonly assume that physical distance to an individual in dire need is not a morally relevant factor. See, e.g. Singer 1972, 231–232: ‘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’. Two things should be noted: First, our argument makes no assumptions about the moral relevance of distance that the proponents do not already make themselves. Second, if distance is a morally relevant factor, then an essential assumption of Singer’s (and other proponents’) argument about the extensive duties of affluent individuals towards the global poor is false.

13 Keep in mind the Unger quote in the Introduction (Unger 1996, 134).

14 US$5200 is the inflation-adjusted 2020 amount that equals the US$3000 mentioned in Unger’s 1996 book. Inflation calculation is done via: https://www.officialdata.org/ (accessed October 7, 2020).

15 Just consider how different intuitions individuals even within the proponent camp have on this issue. Compare, for example, Richard Miller and Peter Singer’s widely differing intuitions on what constitutes ’an unreasonable cost’ when it comes to aiding the poor. See Miller quote in footnote number 7. Here Miller describes Singer’s view on this as ‘frightening’.

16 Of course, Wellman can reject this cut-off point and say that it is not one that he is prepared to accept. Our reply to this is to accept this response, but then immediately ask Wellman what his cut-off point then is. The one he initially offered in the article will not do, and if he does not offer another cut-off point, then he is in the theoretically dissatisfying situation of being a proponent who accepts (2) but offers no reply to the challenge embedded in (2).

17 These assumptions are that Antonio has not on 12 previous occasions, in the calendar year in question, saved other people from death or serious bodily damage and that Antonio can help Bathsheba in two hours or less.

18 It is worth keeping in mind that other thought experiments (involving, for example, doctors and nurses) can be constructed along the lines of the one involving Mary the Midwife.

19 This cut-off point has many affinities with one suggested by Singer (1972, 241).

20 This cut-off point has many affinities with the one entailed by Murphy’s ‘Cooperative Principle’ (1993, 280).

21 It is an important feature of our thought experiments that a significant amount of time has passed between the time where the cut-off point has been reached, and the time at which the agent finds herself in a situation in which (a) and (b) apply. We have set up our thought experiments in this way because we want our thought experiments to resemble the original thought experiments. In all of the original thought experiments, the relevant agents are – for all we know – physically and mentally rested. They are not fatigued in any of these two respects. Now, one may have the intuition that, surely, the relevant agents in our thought experiments (Julia, George or Mary) have not reached an appropriate cut-off point. They ought to do more! After all, it is explicitly stipulated that they are mentally and physically rested, and have monetary resources at their disposal. However, it is also explicitly stipulated that they have already reached the cut-off point set by the proponents themselves. And, importantly, the entire point of having cut-off points is to carve out space for pursuing activities that are unrelated to assisting needy individuals. The very raison d’être of cut-off points is to make time and space for such important human activities. If the reader is still left with the intuition that the relevant agent in our thought experiments should help, and therefore has not reached an appropriate cut-off point, we invite the reader to explicate what the correct cut-off point is, and then to imagine a scenario in which the relevant agent has reached that cut-off point, and now faces the situation described in our thought experiments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jørn Sønderholm

Jørn Sønderholm is the director of the Centre for Philosophy and Public Policy at Aalborg University in Denmark. He has published articles in journals such as Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society; Politics, Philosophy & Economics; Analytic Philosophy; Public Affairs Quarterly, Philosophy Compass; and Bioethics. He has a PhD in philosophy from the University of St Andrews.

Jakob Thrane Mainz

Jakob Thrane Mainz is a PhD student working on a project called ‘Privacy and the Ethics of Data Analytics’. Jakob writes about normative issues related to privacy and the collection and usage of large amounts of personal data, especially in relation to machine-learning and data analytics. His papers have been published in venues like Res Publica, Journal of Information Ethics, and Public Affairs Quarterly.