Abstract
This chapter examines the following question – to what extent do contemporary ethical approaches to the duty of assistance offer ways to resolve the tensions faced by those engaged in the current practice of assistance? Two broad categories of responses that cut across traditional consequentialist and deontological boundaries are evident – instructive accounts that seek to specify precisely what the duty of assistance entails, and more specifically, what the content of this obligation is for affluent citizens towards those in need beyond their borders; and distributive accounts that resist the temptation to specify the content of the duty, focusing instead on opportunities offered by the imperfect structure of this duty, the possibilities of agency, and the processes and tools required for giving expression to this duty in different contexts that interrupt the usual order and practice. This chapter focuses on the first group of accounts through a comparative analysis of the work of John Rawls and Peter Singer. It argues that the instructive focus proposed in both approaches are at risk of over-specifying and simultaneously and under-estimating the requirements and reach of the duty of assistance. Ultimately, it argues that such instructive accounts do not provide pathways to resolve the tensions faced by those engaged in the current practice of global assistance.
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Notes
- 1.
For example, some have argued that affluent citizens in affluent states ought to increase donations to charitable organisations (Peter Singer); or that such citizens ought to build upon the existing international institutional infrastructure (in particular, institutions of the UN) to support peace-building and state building efforts in underdeveloped regions (John Rawls).
- 2.
- 3.
The term ‘practical ethics’ is somewhat ambiguous and the source of much debate among philosophers. For a contemporary perspective on what this entails, see Peter Singer’s third edition of Practical Ethics (2011), and for an interesting, yet briefer read, Martin Benjamin’s essay ‘Between Subway and Spaceship: Practical Ethics at the Outset of the Twenty-First Century’ (2001) provides an elegant overview of the aspirations and challenges of this endeavour.
- 4.
Although Amartya Sen (2009) employs a form of this method within a consequentialist framework.
- 5.
It is intended to apply to the basic structures of constitutional liberal democratic societies. Such societies are closed and self sufficient; they share a public political culture including political reasoning and understanding; they are democratic in nature; and share a conception of the moral person ‘as both free and equal, as capable of acting both reasonably and rationally, and therefore as capable of taking part in social cooperation among persons so conceived’ (Rawls 1980: 517).
- 6.
Although the duty of assistance is introduced by Rawls in The Law of Peoples as the eighth principle of the law of peoples, his analysis of this duty falls into less than 15 pages (1999: 105–120). To get a broader understanding of the grounds, ends, content, and limit I have explored Rawls’s other works, for example Theory of Justice (1971) discusses principles for individuals, including mutual aid (Chapter II: 19; Chapter IV on duty and obligation).
- 7.
Rawls identifies five categories of regime type in LP – Liberal peoples, decent (non-liberal) people. Both of these are considered ‘well-ordered’ and the bulk of concern within LP is to examine how these two groups can co-operate at an international level where both engage as free and equal members. The three remaining categories – outlaw peoples, burdened peoples, and peoples governed by benevolent absolutisms – are considered mainly in a non-ideal sense – of how to move them from their current status to a state of well-orderedness where they can participate in international cooperation as free and equal members of the society of peoples.
- 8.
From the outset, Rawls is not entirely clear on what the basis or ground of this duty is. Whatever it is, it not a moral duty.
- 9.
The seven remaining principles of Justice outlined in the Law of Peoples – peoples are free and independent; must observe treaties and undertakings; are equal and are parties to the agreements that bind them; are to observe a duty of non-intervention; have the right to self-defence; are to honour human rights; are to observe the restrictions in the conduct of war (1999: 35).
- 10.
In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes’s conceptualisation of duty as an artificial voluntary construct is perhaps one of the most radical accounts ever developed. For Hobbes, the laws of nature are the dictates of reason and can be known to all men. However, they are not laws proper, they are but ‘conclusions or theoremes’ (Hobbes. 1968. 1.15: 217). They become laws proper when a sovereign power is in place to enforce them. Therefore there are no duties outside of the boundaries of the law. This account is consistently rejected in the work of John Locke and Kant (Rawls claims an affinity to both of these philosophers) as both argue that duties act as a constraint on self-interest.
- 11.
For Hobbes it would be irrational to try and treat the duties to others as binding in the absence of this entity: ‘The Lawes of Nature oblige in foro interno; that is to say, they bind to a desire they should take place: but in foro externo, that is, to the putting them in act, not always. For he that should be modest, and tractable, and performe all his promises, in such time and place where no man els should do so, should but make himself a prey to others, and procure his own certain ruine, contrary to the ground of all Lawes of Nature, which tend to Natures preservation’ (Hobbes 1968. 1.15: 215).
- 12.
It is also very different from his account of the duty to assist within the domestic context. See for example, A Theory of Justice (1971) and discussion related to principles for individuals, including mutual aid (Chapter II: 19; Chapter IV on duty and obligation).
- 13.
These comments are broadly consistent with Thomas Nagel’s analysis in ‘The problem of global justice’ (2005).
- 14.
I take oppression here to mean to subdue and suppress (OED online) where one party controls and subdues another. I take this, in this case, to be the antithesis of autonomy.
- 15.
The liberal principle of toleration is demonstrated through the acceptance by liberal peoples that others may have non-liberal values and still be members of the group of well-ordered peoples nonetheless. For example, non-liberal peoples that each may have a different conception of the person and different conceptions of freedom and equality within different peoples.
- 16.
Rawls states in the introduction that his basic idea is to ‘follow Kant’s lead as sketched by him in Perpetual Peace (1795)’.
- 17.
- 18.
Andrew Hurrell’s On Global Order (2007) provides a powerful account of the deepening and expanding nature of the relationships that exist across territorial boundaries in recent decades. According to Hurrell, ‘the changes associated with globalization and the increased interaction and connectedness across global society have … undermined both the practical viability and the moral acceptability of a traditional state-based pluralism’ (2007: 297). For Hurrell, and many others, a greater appreciation of this interdependence and connectedness is necessary when identifying the starting point of where we are and where we hope to get to. Thus the empirical assumption within Rawls’ peoples-based pluralism does not appear to provide a sound, secure starting point for an analysis of duties to others.
- 19.
Thus, attempts by philosophers such as Charles Beitz (1979, 1999) and Thomas Pogge to extend Rawlsian principles of justice (in particular, the second principle of justice known as the difference principle that is concerned with distributive matters) beyond the boundaries of states, cannot, according to Rawls, by justified.
- 20.
For information on the growth, reach, and depth of the international institutional framework directly influences and shapes domestic institutions see for example, Pogge Politics as Usual (2010).
- 21.
- 22.
For a helpful overview of the debates of this research see (Eds) Gardiner, Shue, Caney, and Jaimeson The Ethics of Climate Change (2010).
- 23.
Kok-Chor Tan (2005) examines this in detail.
- 24.
See for example Toby Ord’s organisation Giving What We Can – http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/.
- 25.
As Michael Blake explains, for Singer, ‘morality requires a radical revision of our moral duties; donating to famine relief is not a matter of charity or supererogation; such donations are not optional gifts, but duties, and those who do not donate are acting in an immoral way on any plausible interpretation of our moral thinking’ (SEP Online 2005). I am not convinced that this represents a ‘radical revision of our moral duties’, rather a complete extrapolation of the principle of beneficence which forms the basis of much utilitarian thought. Also, both deontological and consequentialist ethical frameworks would argue that this is a matter of duty (for deontologists it may be described as a duty of virtue, but a duty and therefore a matter of strict obligation nonetheless).
- 26.
He does, however, assume that they should (in a normative sense) employ utilitarian reasoning to select the most efficient and effective agencies that can satisfy the end of securing the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
- 27.
I think it is particularly interesting that Sidgwick uses the term ‘kindness’ in the context of special relationships. This term is much more widely used to describe a motivation for acting in the interests of those outside these contexts.
- 28.
For example, Singer has written extensively on the ethical problems of climate change, treatment of non-human species, and so on. His work on practical ethics (third edition published 2011) examines in detail how ethical considerations and judgements can be weighed and justified through utilitarian methods.
- 29.
For example Elizabeth Ashford in her discussion of the right to assistance (2007).
- 30.
The financial crisis in the eurozone area provides perhaps an interesting example of the difficulties surrounding integration and joint action between states regarding monetary affairs.
- 31.
Singer has, in the three decades following publication of this article, responded to many of his critics providing sophisticated and rich responses in support of his conclusion.
- 32.
See for example, Singer’s The life you can save (2009) chapter 8.
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Murphy, S.P. (2016). Contemporary Philosophical Faces of Deontology and Consequentialism – John Rawls and Peter Singer. In: Responsibility in an Interconnected World. Studies in Global Justice, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31445-7_3
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