Does distance matter morally to the duty to rescue?

Law and Philosophy

Volumn 19, Issue 6, 2000, Pages 655-681

  Kamm, F M ^a  

^a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 0034563779     PISSN: 01675249     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3505070     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Throughout I use "obligation" and "duty" interchangeably and without the implication that someone has a correlative right. I do not think this is crucial to my argument.
2. My discussion here draws heavily on my articles, "Faminine Ethics: The Problem of Distance in Morality and Singer's Ethical Theory," in Singer and His Critics, ed. D. Jamieson (Blackwell's, 1999); and "Rescue and Harm: A Discussion of Peter Unger's Living High and Letting Die" in Legal Theory (March 1999).
3. My discussion here draws heavily on my articles, "Faminine Ethics: The Problem of Distance in Morality and Singer's Ethical Theory," in Singer and His Critics, ed. D. Jamieson (Blackwell's, 1999); and "Rescue and Harm: A Discussion of Peter Unger's Living High and Letting Die" in Legal Theory (March 1999).
4. Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," reprinted in World Hunger and Moral Obligation (W. Aiken & H. LaFollette, eds., 1977), pp. 22-36; and Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (2d ed., 1993).
5. Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," reprinted in World Hunger and Moral Obligation (W. Aiken & H. LaFollette, eds., 1977), pp. 22-36; and Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (2d ed., 1993).
6. If it only had a distinguishing role, then when all the needy are far, we might just toss a coin to find out who our equally strong duty to give far-aid will benefit.
7. For detailed discussion of that issue, see F. M. Kamm, Morality, Mortality, Vol. II, chapters 1-5 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
8. Suggested by Connie Rosati.
9. Assuming nonintensional contexts. The same is true in killing and letting die. See Morality, Mortality, Vol. II.
10. On these phenomena, see my "Killing, Letting Die: Methodological and Substantive Issues," in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (Winter 1983); S. Kagan, "The Additive Fallacy," Ethics 99 (1988); and Morality, Mortality, Vol. II.
11. On these phenomena, see my "Killing, Letting Die: Methodological and Substantive Issues," in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (Winter 1983); S. Kagan, "The Additive Fallacy," Ethics 99 (1988); and Morality, Mortality, Vol. II.
12. On these phenomena, see my "Killing, Letting Die: Methodological and Substantive Issues," in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (Winter 1983); S. Kagan, "The Additive Fallacy," Ethics 99 (1988); and Morality, Mortality, Vol. II.
13. I owe this point to Matthew Coleman Niece.
14. As suggested in David Schmidtz's "Islands in a Sea of Obligation: The Nature and Limits of the Duty of Rescue," this volume.
15. I owe this point to Julia Driver and Jerrold Katz.
16. I owe this case to Tyler Burge.
17. The distinction between personal encounter and nearness was emphasized to me by Franklin Bruno and Richard Miller.
18. If this were wrong but personal encounter were a morally relevant factor, this would also be a significant conclusion. But suppose long-distance vision made for personal encounter. Suppose also it would be permissible to turn off my long-distance vision and so stop a personal encounter with a distant person, but not with a near person in an otherwise comparable case, if personal encounter were necessary to prompt aid. This would be evidence that personal encounter did not give rise to an obligation, but nearness did.
19. Which is based on one raised by Wydek Rabinowicz.
20. Raised by Thomas Nagel. It is also raised by Richard Hare in arguing against hypothetical cases as counterexamples to utilitarianism.
21. Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 24-36.
22. I owe this point to Marina Oshana.
23. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971).
24. Liam Murphy, "Institutions and the Demands of Justice." Unpublished paper presented at the New York University Colloquium on Law, Philosophy, and Social Theory, 1997.
25. Liam Murphy, "The Demands of Beneficence," Philosophy & Public Affairs 22(6) (Fall 1993), pp. 267-292.
26. Again, I am focusing on accident, not basic justice, cases.
27. The fact that an agent can be obligated to aid because he is near a threat is an important consideration in conceptualizing matters as the agent having a special relation to the area near him. An alternative would be to say that a victim acquires certain rights over the things near him, including persons and means. But a threat cannot acquire rights over agents and means near it. This suggests that we must focus on the agent's relation to the area near him rather than the victim's claims on what is in the area near him. However, note that the latter conceptualization offers a better account of why intuitively an agent may not be required to call upon the same resources (e.g., his Stradivarius) to aid when they are far as when they are near.
28. If the means is the agent's employee, he does not, of course, own the employee. Nevertheless, I shall understand him to have a relation to his employee similar to ownership, for our purposes.
29. If this is so, does it open a truly vast potential obligation? Consider that one's money now seems to be locatable almost anywhere owing to banks and cash machines. (I owe this point to Sigrun Svavarsdottir.) Suppose there is a cash machine in a distant part of India, and with it I could access my money if I were there. If my money is there whenever I need it (or anyone who has my code needs it), why is it not simply there? I believe there is still a difference that may have moral significance between (1) things of mine being transmitted to distant India rapidly or things that are not mine becoming mine rapidly (in virtue of exchanges in bank balance), and (2) what is mine being there, in distant India, already. Certainly, my money cannot now actually be wherever there is a cash machine that would give me money if I were there, for that would mean my assets were enormous, when actually they are very small. (Liam Murphy suggests an alternative account: Money is too abstract to be dealt with like concrete means. [If it were in a sack next to a child in distress, this might not be so, I suggest.])
30. For details, see "Faminine Ethics: The Problem of Distance in Morality and Singer's Ethical Theory."
31. This special responsibility is not to be identified with any property-like stake in the area around him, as this would imply that he not only had special responsibilities for, but also special privileges in, the area near him. But this need not be true.
32. See Samuel Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).
33. In The Rejection of Nonconsequentialism.
34. See his The View from Nowhere (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).
35. See Morality, Mortality, Vol. II for criticism.
36. I first tried to show this in my article "Supererogation and Obligation," Journal of Philosophy (March 1985), reprinted in The Philosopher's Annual (1985). For an expanded version, see Kamm, supra note 4, chapter 12.
37. I first tried to show this in my article "Supererogation and Obligation," Journal of Philosophy (March 1985), reprinted in The Philosopher's Annual (1985). For an expanded version, see Kamm, supra note 4, chapter 12.
38. I first tried to show this in my article "Supererogation and Obligation," Journal of Philosophy (March 1985), reprinted in The Philosopher's Annual (1985). For an expanded version, see Kamm, supra note 4, chapter 12.
39. Samuel Scheffler, "Individual Responsibility in a Global Age," Social Theory and Practice 21(1) (Winter 1995), pp. 219-236.
40. On this Choice Test, see Morality, Mortality, Vol. II.
41. I thank Liam Murphy for suggesting that I examine the significance of physical distance. I am indebted to the students and faculty of my graduate classes in ethical theory at UCLA and NYU for their discussion of the ideas in this article. I am grateful for comments from Sigrun Svavarsdottir, Derek Parfit, audiences at the Philosophy Department Colloquia at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and the University of Calgary, at the Conference on Nationalism and Borders at the University of Utah, and at the Pacific Philosophical Association 1999 panel on Aiding Distant Strangers. I am also grateful for the discussion at the Conference on Moral Theory, La Lavandou, France, July 1999, where my commentator was Marina Oshana, and for discussion at the Conference on the Moral and Legal Limits of Samaritan Duties at Georgia State University, where my commentator was Vicki Igneski.