Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Entanglements and the claims of mere humanity
- Chapter 3 Duties and rights, charity and justice
- Chapter 4 “Negative” and “positive” duties
- Chapter 5 Oughts and cans
- Chapter 6 Why people do what others do – and why that’s not so bad
- Chapter 7 Whose poor?/who’s poor?: deprivation within and across borders
- Chapter 8 Hopefully helping: the perils of giving
- Chapter 9 On motives and morality
- Chapter 10 Conclusion: morality for mere mortals
- Works cited
- Index
Chapter 8 - Hopefully helping: the perils of giving
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Entanglements and the claims of mere humanity
- Chapter 3 Duties and rights, charity and justice
- Chapter 4 “Negative” and “positive” duties
- Chapter 5 Oughts and cans
- Chapter 6 Why people do what others do – and why that’s not so bad
- Chapter 7 Whose poor?/who’s poor?: deprivation within and across borders
- Chapter 8 Hopefully helping: the perils of giving
- Chapter 9 On motives and morality
- Chapter 10 Conclusion: morality for mere mortals
- Works cited
- Index
Summary
The previous chapters have focused on the nature and extent of our moral responsibilities to benefit others, and on how to make such responsibilities less demanding. But we must now consider whether the assumption that we can solve some of the problems created by global poverty – or, more generally, by the unmet needs of others – is a reasonable one. If it is not possible to help people, then on the assumption that Ought Implies Can we have no responsibility to do so.
Why might one doubt that it’s possible to aid others? Some of the reasons are more or less inherent in the very notions of giving and receiving; others are tied to the specific conditions and circumstances surrounding programs and policies designed to aid poor people in developing countries, and sometimes also in developed countries. I begin by examining the nature of giving and receiving in very general terms, and then look at aid in the economic, social, and political contexts most relevant to poverty today.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Distant StrangersEthics, Psychology, and Global Poverty, pp. 177 - 205Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013