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Notes
1. The distinction between acts of omission and commission is pertinent to the research setting. On a simplistic delineation of negative and positive duties, all acts that further the well-being of others are considered supererogatory. However, this is not how duties to rescue are often conceived of by the philosophers in question. Rawls (Citation1999), for example, defines the duty to rescue as a “natural duty,” and he too is at a loss to determine the stringency of such obligations, noting that how such obligations are to be weighed, even in relation to negative duties, is an “untidy” matter, leaving us with “no obvious rules for settling such questions” (298–9).
2 . Scanlon's version takes the form “If you are presented with a situation in which you can prevent something very bad from happening, or alleviate someone's dire plight, by making a slight (or even moderate) sacrifice, then it would be wrong not to do so.” It is also worth noting that his version does take into account some aspects of context that are not acknowledged by Garrett's “rescue paradigm” version. Scanlon (1998, 224), for example, is quite clear that the interpretation of his version, what he calls the “Rescue Principle,” considers efforts made in previous rescues “so that the principle does not demand unlimited sacrifice.”
3 . Importantly, Rawls's principle is particularly pertinent when the chances of being the beneficiary are similar to those of being the one to provide aid.
4 . In such situations, one party has much more knowledge of the intricacies of the research protocol, and has objectives that can run contrary to the interests of participants. Perhaps such distinct obligations might be derived along similar lines as Rawls's (Citation1999, 98–101) “natural duties.”