PHIL 102 Lecture Notes - Modus Tollens
Document Summary
Mention his arguments against his thesis as well. If p is true, then q is true. His conclusion: you should do everything in your power to address famine up to the point that you"re not giving up anything of moral comparable value. Eg. if you see a child drowning and you can go in knee-deep to save them, you should do it. It doesn"t matter if you"ll ruin a new suit (not comparable moral value) He"s not saying that you have a moral obligation to do good, you just have an obligation to not do bad. Thesis is that his argument generalizes to all situations, doesn"t de ne bad things. Eg. we feel that we have an obligation to save a child we se drowning, but not a starving child across the globe. His response is that distance is psychologically compelling but morally irrelevant.
