Although we do not know exactly how many people die each year of malnutrition or related health problems, the number is very high, in the millions. By giving money to support famine relief efforts, each of us could save at least some of them. By not giving, we let them die.
Some philosophers have argued that letting people die is not as bad as killing them, because in general our 'positive duty' to give aid is weaker than our 'negative duty' not to do harm. I maintain the opposite: letting die is just as bad as killing. At first this may seem wildly implausible. When reminded that people are dying of starvation while we spend money on trivial things, we may feel a bit guilty, but certainly we do not feel like murderers. Philippa Foot writes:
Most of us allow people to die of starvation in India and Africa, and there is surely something wrong with us that we do; it would be nonsense, however, to pretend that it is only in law that we make a distinction between allowing people in the underdeveloped countries to die of starvation and sending them poisoned food. There is worked into our moral system a distinction between what we owe people in the form of aid and what we owe them in the way of non-interference.
No doubt this would be correct if it were intended only as a description of what most people believe. Whether this feature of 'our moral system' is rationally defensible is, however, another matter. I shall argue that we are wrong to take comfort in the fact that we 'only' let these people die, because our duty not to let them die is equally as strong as our duty not to kill them, which, of course, is very strong indeed.
Obviously, this Equivalence Thesis is not morally neutral, as philosophical claims about ethics often are. It is a radical idea which, if true, would mean that some of our 'intuitions' (our prereflective beliefs about what is right and wrong in particular cases) are mistaken and must be rejected. Neither is the view I oppose morally neutral. The idea that killing is worse than letting die is a relatively conservative thesis which would allow those same intuitions to be preserved. However, the Equivalence Thesis should not be dismissed merely because it does not conform to all our prereflective intuitions. Rather than being perceptions of the truth, our 'intuitions' might sometimes signify nothing more than our prejudices or selfishness or cultural conditioning. Philosophers often admit that, in theory at least, some intuitions might be unreliable—but usually this possibility is not taken seriously, and conformity to prereflective intuition is used uncritically as a test of the acceptability of moral theory. In what follows I shall argue that many of our intuitions concerning killing and letting die are mistaken, and should not be trusted.
(James Rachels, "Killing and Starving to Death," Philosophy 54 [April 1979]: 159-71, at 159-60 [italics in original; footnotes omitted])
Note from KBJ: Do you accept the Equivalence Thesis?
Note 2 from KBJ: People such as Rachels (and Peter Singer) believe that we are responsible for the bad things we allow to happen. Why are we not, by parity of reasoning, responsible for the good things we allow to happen? Suppose you are drowning and I can prevent it but do not. Rachels says I am responsible for your death, just as if I had held your head under water. Now suppose you are going to win a prestigious race and I could prevent it (by, say, tripping you) but do not. Am I responsible for your victory? That's crazy! Here is my reasoning:
1. If I am responsible for the bad things I allow to happen, then I am responsible for the good things I allow to happen. (Call this the Symmetry Thesis.)
2. It's not the case that I am responsible for the good things I allow to happen.
Therefore,
3. It's not the case that I am responsible for the bad things I allow to happen.
Rachels rejects 3, which follows from 1 and 2 by modus tollens. He must, therefore, reject either 1 or 2. He seems committed to 1 (the Symmetry Thesis), so he must reject 2. But surely it's absurd that each of us is responsible for all the good things we allow to happen! Since each of us can prevent many good things from happening each day, each of us gets moral credit for not doing so. Today, for example, I was a moral saint. I could have spent my entire day thwarting people's plans, foiling people's projects, and interfering with people's activities. Since I did not, I get credit for all the good things that occurred!
Note 3 from KBJ: Rachels uses the terms "radical" and "conservative." In this context, they refer to attitudes toward "intuitions," or "prereflective beliefs." The radical is less respectful than the conservative toward intuitions. (At the limit, the radical has no respect for them.) Rachels says that "our 'intuitions' might sometimes signify nothing more than our prejudices or selfishness or cultural conditioning." That's true. But they might also signify something more than this, namely, permanent and important features of the human condition, "discovered" by a long process of trial and error that is neither supervised nor controlled by anyone. The radical (or progressive) accords no presumption to conventional norms. Everything is to be thought through from scratch. The conservative, by contrast, accords a presumption to conventional norms, which are thought to embody the wisdom of the ages. To the radical, the conservative is complacent, even reactionary. To the conservative, the radical is hubristic. Rachels is correct that these two attitudes exist. He is also correct that neither attitude is "morally neutral." I would add that neither attitude is irrational. Rachels is a radical. I am a conservative. Neither of us is right or wrong; we simply have different attitudes toward conventional norms. Rachels is suspicious of them; I am not.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 