PHILOS 2YY3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Anarchism In Russia
27 Sep 2016
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Lecture 19: moral responsibilities to the needy continued . Utilitarianism and helping the needy: famine, affluence and morality. The strong principle: if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance ought, morally, to do it. The moderate principle: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from we ought, morally, to happening, without sacrificing anything morally significant, do it. The shallow pond example: i am walking past a shallow pond with a child drowning, no one else is around. If i save the child, my clothes will get muddy. If you say yes to this, this principle should also apply to saving the lives of the needy who are distant. For any universal principle of morality, proximity should not matter, relation to the victim should not matter, and the fact that you"re the only one around should not matter.
