Relief Famine and the ideal Moral Code
Arthurs Main Argument
1. There is duty to provide aid whenever others are in greater need and will suffer without
our help.
2. People who deserve or who have a right to their wealth are entitled to keep it.
3. For the most part, entitlements morally trumps the duty to aid others.
3. Therefore, for the most part, people are morally permitted to keep most of the wealth
that the have by right or by desert.
Entitlements
Two kinds: derived from rights, derived from what one deserves.
Rights
Example: Suppose I have kidney disease and need a healthy kidney to survive.
You have a healthy that is a match for mine. You dont need two kidneys. Does that
mean you are morally required to give me your kidney? Arthur says no, because you have
a right to control your body, and I dont have a right to control your body.
Negative rights: right to be free from others interference. (My right to my kidney is a
negative right.)
Positive rights: If you promised me your kidney, I would acquire a positive right to it.
Negative rights are basic or natural.
Positive rights not are natural and are acquired.
Desert
Example: the industrious farmer and the lazy farmer
Arthur claims that our current moral code requires us to both to help others in need and to
respect entitlements. He thinks this implies that sometimes we can permissibly invoke
entitlements to justify failure to help. [When?]
Ideal Moral Code
Would an ideal moral code revise this?
Arthur endorses a Restricted Rule Utilitarian approach for determining what is right,
what an ideal moral code requires. [restricted: promotes the well being of those living
under it. Does everybody live under the same code for Arthur?]
Such a code must win public support, be workable and practical.
Because people have limited altruism, an ideal moral code gives entitlements greater
weight than the duty to aid. This will in the end produce more aiding because the code
will be more thoroughly embraced.
One is required to aid when there is no substantial cost to oneself.
(Does mean one can ignore the drowning child if ones clothes are very expensive and
will be ruined, or if one will miss one's interview?)