How Much for the Child?

In this paper we explore what sacrifices you are morally required to make to save a child who is about to die in front of you. It has been argued that you would have very demanding duties to save such a child (or any adult who is in similar circumstance through no fault of their own, for that matter...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethical theory and moral practice
Authors: Barry, Christian (Author) ; Øverland, Gerhard (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2013
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2013, Volume: 16, Issue: 1, Pages: 189-204
Further subjects:B Peter Singer
B Global Poverty
B Duties of assistance
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:In this paper we explore what sacrifices you are morally required to make to save a child who is about to die in front of you. It has been argued that you would have very demanding duties to save such a child (or any adult who is in similar circumstance through no fault of their own, for that matter), and some examples have been presented to make this claim seem intuitively correct. Against this, we argue that you do not in general have a moral requirement to bear more than moderate cost to save even a child who is just in front of you. Moreover, we explain why you have a much more demanding moral requirement in certain cases by appealing to the notions of undue risk and cost sharing.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-011-9325-4