2. Arguments from Beneficence, Part 2

Okay, so today we're going to look at further concerns about arguments from beneficence. If you recall, last week we distinguished between three principal kinds of argument that have been offered in support of a view on duties that we have if we're well off towards Poor people in other countries. The first kind I distinguished was what I called arguments from beneficence.

These argue that we have a duty to promote the well-being of poor people in other countries in some way and to some extent. They differ over what way that is and to what extent we have a duty to do that. And but the key notion is the duty to promote well being, beneficence for the same route as benefit.

essentially a duty to benefit others. These contrast with other arguments for duties to the global poor, such as those that claim we have duties of justice to them of various kinds, or duties to stop harming them. Yeah. And we looked at the best known of arguments from beneficence for duties towards the global poor, and that was Peter Singer's argument.

thinks that our failure to contribute to aid agencies uh when we could do so without sacrificing something nearly as important as the lives we could save or the suffering we could stop. is analogous in all morally relevant respects to walking past a drowning child when we could save that child at very little cost to ourselves.

The upshot of Singer's conclusion is that most of us are required to spend most of what we earn and It's plausible to think to spend a great deal of our time as well on benefiting uh poor people in other countries, given the state of the world at the moment and our capacity to help them through donating to aid agencies. So Singer's conclusion, very demanding conclusion, certainly by comparison with what we commonly think our duties, if any, towards the global poor are.

And that is what has occasioned a great deal of resistance to it, the thought being that There's something problematic about the claim that our duties towards poor people in other countries are as demanding as that, that they would require us to sacrifice so many things, so many sources of satisfaction that we commonly think that there's nothing morally wrong with having.

Uh and this question uh about whether s conclusions like Singer's are too demanding and more generally whether arguments from beneficence uh of a similar form are too demanding. has received received an enormous amount of attention in philosophy. Because even if you disagree with the details of Singer's argument, there's something very tempting uh and difficult to resist about the analogy he draws between uh not saving a drowning child and not saving lives by donating to aid agencies.

even if the way Singer works it out in his argument uh has problems, that doesn't entirely you know, depending on the criticisms you accept, of course. We may still want to know what is the difference between just walking past a child and not donating this kind of amount or very substantial amounts to aid agencies. So that's one concern that's puzzled a lot of people. They want to see uh whether there is a relevant difference between these things.

But much more broadly, uh, as many of you will know if you've taken the ethics paper, it's a very standard objection to notably consequentialism as a moral theory that it imposes on us duties that are too demanding. So Singer thinks his argument uh in the poverty case is not exclusively a consequentialist argument, that non consequentialists should be able to accept it.

Uh but, you know, it's one of the standard objections to consequentialism as well, that they this requirement that we produce whatever the best outcome is that we can produce in any given situation. is an extremely demanding requirement.

So and it arises in large part because this theory is allied with a view according to which we have to consider the interests of every person uh liable to be affected by our actions equally, including ourselves, so we can give no special weight to ourselves in determining what we ought to do.

And consequently, uh it seems that if we can save uh say thousands of lives, uh and the cost to ourselves is that we live an unsatisfying life, at least in many normal contexts, a consequentialist is going to say you have to do that. live the unsatisfying life if that's the at least the only way to do the most good, to do that kind of good.

And there's been a great deal of writ uh written, particularly in response to consequentialism, on whether moral principles can be too demanding and what makes it the case that a moral principle is too demanding if it is. But I should say it's not just something that even applies just to consequentialist principles either. You might think this applies in any number of cases, uh in

moral systems that they could be highly demanding in various circumstances, and particularly to have highly demanding principles of beneficence requirements to benefit other people. So it ramifies in a lot of directions. Today I'd like to take a look at a number of the considerations that have been offered in favor of the view that principles of beneficence that are extremely demanding, of the kind Singer and others have presented, are not acceptable.

And they're not all targeted, as I say, at conclusions about global poverty. Uh they're targeted at more much more general principles of beneficence as well.

So the first I'd like to take a look at is an argument by J. L. Mackey. One problem you might have with an argument like Singer's that requires us to give up so much for the benefit of others is quite simply that people are extremely unlikely to follow that principle. And Singer is quite open about this possibility, and he says this doesn't cast any doubt on the truth of the principle.

uh or the soundness of accepting it. Rather, all that goes to show is that we had better be careful about what sort of principles we publicly advocate. So he recommends publicly advocating a less stringent standard because people are more likely to do more good if you advocate a less stringent standard than if you advocate the true one. But that s doesn't mean that the more stringent standard isn't the true one.

Well J Al Mackie, uh, as many of you will probably know, is well known for denying that there are any moral truths. On Mackey's view, nothing is right or wrong, or good or bad, morally speaking. Nevertheless, he thinks there is a function or a point object to adopting moral principles of various kinds. Broadly speaking, the point of adopting a moral principle is to guide or to control our choices.

It's not to discover the true moral principles, because there aren't any. As the subtitle of his book indicates, ethics is a matter of inventing principles, not discovering. The point of doing so is to guide or to control our choices in various ways. Now, if you have this view that that's the function of adopting a moral principle, then you are going to have obvious problems with extremely demanding moral principles of beneficence or of any other kind.

uh perhaps of any other kind, because Mackey says, and he's talking about consequentialism in this context, utilitarian utilitarianism in particular. people are extremely unlikely to ever follow them. So if it's extremely unlikely that a principle ever actually will guide or control our choices, our actions, our desires, And if the whole point of adopting one is to have something to guide and control our actions or desires, uh then that's a reason a decisive reason not to adopt that principle.

The problem is not that it's untrue as a result of being so demanding or as a result of people being so unlikely to adopt it, because all principles are moral principles are untrue. There are no moral truths. But the point of adopting a principle is as a guide to action. And if it can't function as a guide to action, then or a control on our choices, then Mackey says it's to be rejected.

He does consider the possibility that proposing an extremely demanding principle that we're very unlikely ever to follow might still control our behavior indirectly. So you might think that proposing an unattainable ideal will affect people's actions because they will try to meet it, they will fail, but they will behave differently than they would have if you hadn't proposed it. And in that respect, your choices will be guided or affected by that principle.

But Mackie thinks this is a actually not a very good reason to support utilitarianism or such a demanding principle. Because he thinks it's more likely, as a matter of fact, that proposing an unattainable ideal uh will make us stop thinking of morality as a guide to action. Rather, as he puts it, it'll encourage the thought of morality as a kind of fantasy that accompanies action with which it is incompatible. This is why he describes utilitarianism as the ethics of fantasy.

So, because self-love or self-centeredness is such an uh ineradicable part of our nature. He thinks that we're extremely unlikely to live up to these principles, and even proposing them is unlikely to have these beneficial effects of controlling our behavior in these ways. So that's one grounds on which you might deny that principles that we're very unlikely to follow could be acceptable.

Another very well known attack on highly demanding principles of the utilitarian kind was is offered by Bernard Williams in his paper Persons, Character and Morality. Now Williams is a very difficult writer. Uh so what I'm going to present is something of a reconstruction. is not to exclude the possibility that it can be reconstructed in different ways. But Williams considers what's involved in our seeing that we have a reason to live or to go on.

And Williams thinks that in order to see that we have a reason to live to see any reason to live. We must have projects of our own and special relationships with people. But in order to have projects, interests and so forth of our own, or special relationships with people, we Then we must sometimes give more weight to our own interests or those of others.

than we do to some other people's interests. So he's responding to the element of impartiality in utilitarianism, which asks us to consider everybody's interests, including our own, equally. Problem with this, says Williams, is that that violates a precondition of having projects of our own or interests or special relationships of our own. In order to have such projects, such special relationships, you have to count certain people's interests more heavily than certain other people's.

So consequently if we have a little bit of a little bit of We accepted impartial moral principles of the utilitarian kind, or principles that give equal weight to everyone's interests. uh then we wouldn't be able to have these special projects and relationships with others. And consequently, we would see no reason to live, no reason to go on.

In fact, says Williams, we Having such projects and relationships, and therefore seeing a reason to live, is a precondition of seeing any reason to accept impartial principles of morality in the first place. to be committed to anything, to to life itself, as he l tends to put it. You need to have these kinds of projects to drive you on, to motivate you, relationships of a special kind motivate you and so forth. Consequently, accepting impartial moral principles if we could really do it.

would leave us seeing no reason to go on. No reason to live. Now we'll come back to a somewhat similar version of this argument further on.

The third person who has written a great deal on the demands of consequentialist theories and on impartiality. In particular, uh Samuel Scheffler. Well known book called The Rejection of Consequentialism. and a later book, which I'm going to be focusing on, called Human Morality. And one of the points Scheffler makes in that book is that We shouldn't think that Accepting an impartialist principle of the consequentialist kind.

is the only way that is required, or simply follows, or perhaps more cautiously, obviously follows from the belief that everyone is of equal value and importance. So Scheffler says, You can believe that everyone is of equal value and importance. While also accepting that your own interests and projects can sometimes carry a disproportionate weight in determining what you may permissibly do.

So the thought is that if you think that your own projects relationships and so forth, do carry a disproportionate weight. in determining what you ought to do. That need not be because you think you're more valuable than other people, or that your interests are more important than other people. Other people's interests. Certain consequentialists, Scheffler writes, want to present their view as simply a consequence of the undeniable claim that everybody is of equal value.

He says we can accept that, uh but its implications for how we act or how we're morally permitted to act, uh don't simply follow in the consequentialist way from that. And what Scheffler suggests is that we should see morality or at least moral principles stating what our duties are. as an attempt to balance two propositions, as he puts it.

So the first proposition is the claim that from an impersonal standpoint, everyone is of equal intrinsic value and everyone's interests are of equal intrinsic importance. Second is that each person's interests have a significance for her that is out of proportion to their importance from an impersonal standpoint. So he says it would be tempting to think that you have morality on the one hand, which embodies the point of view that everybody is of equal value.

And you've got self interest on the other hand, and these are competing with one another, and we find various compromises between them. But he thinks it's more plausible to think that morality itself moral principles of obligation are themselves the result of an attempt to balance. The impartial standpoint, that from an impersonal point of view, everybody's interests are of equal importance, every person is of equal value.

And the more partial standpoint that e each person's interests have a significance to her that is out of proportion to their importance from an impartial standpoint. He's saying it's plausible to think that moral principles of obligation are an attempt to balance both of these truths. not just allied with one of those truths and in opposition to Yeah. And he gives a number of considerations in support of this view.

One of them is the fact that we have the common sense belief that at least within certain limits The fact that our interests are important to us justifies us morally in giving them disproportionate attention.

And if you take morality itself, or at least moral principles of obligation, to be an attempt to balance the partial point of view and the impartial or impersonal standpoint, that would explain why giving attention to your Interests out of proportion to the importance they have from an impersonal standpoint can be legitimate. suggests is that this way of looking at morality respects our conviction that living morally is a realistic possibility.

And that it is a realistic possibility, because, as he puts it, it enables us to integrate respect for others. with our naturally disproportionate concern to lead a fulfilling life. So again, another widespread common sense view, he thinks. this way of looking at morality respects and explains. So too, he thinks, what we have to acknowledge is that there's a deep strand in our thinking that uh admires Heroic self sacrifice, transcending the self.

Leaving aside the interests of various kinds and helping others for the benefit of others. Excuse me. He thinks this way of looking at morality allows for that and grants that it's admirable, but doesn't require it. So on this seeing morality as an attempt to balance these two principles, as I've stressed a few times, is a way of looking at principles of obligation or duty. That allows for what I described last time supererogation of a heroic kind. Thank you.

And finally he also suggests that This way of looking at morality explains the role that morality plays in our lives. So he points out that we shape our projects and interests themselves in order to avoid conflict with our moral beliefs. And seeing morality as a balancing between these two things, uh these two points of view helps explain that. Now if you're here last week, uh of course this way of looking at things will remind you of the discussion we had of methodology in ethics.

It raises the question of how much evidence is it that a certain viewpoint on morality chimes with common sense or widely held moral belief? Uh as best I can tell, Scheffler seems to take it as uh a good deal of evidence in favour of this view. Uh but whether you think that's acceptable or not is probably g is going to depend very much on what kind of methodology or ethics you adopt and what you think of this kind of methodology.

Now another person who has written at length on this topic is Liam Murphy. And Murphy makes the interesting and seemingly counterintuitive point that the problem with highly demanding principles of beneficence is actually not that they are highly demanding. So it's natural to express our problem with principles that make such extreme demands as singers. in those terms that that's just an unreasonable demand. Yeah. Or at least that it's so extreme it couldn't possibly be required of us.

But Murphy presents a number of arguments to suggest that this is actually not the problem with those kinds of principles. He thinks there is a problem with those principles, but that's not it. So he points out that it seems that principles of beneficence, requirements to benefit people. unique in eliciting this reaction that they impose extreme demands and are unacceptable on those grounds.

So he says Principles of beneficence were problematic because of the extremity of the demands that they made. then it seems as though any moral principle, not just a principle of beneficence, should be problematic if it does that, or there should be a special reason why principles of beneficence are problematic for that reason. for making extreme demands. Amen. But on the one hand, he points out not all moral principles that make extreme demands are problematic.

So he says, here's a principle, slavery is wrong. In many contexts, and he gives the example of fifth century Athens following that principle could be extremely demanding for a slaveholder. So if you're a slaveholder in fifth century Athens, I don't know a whole lot about it, but I imagine it's true that it could be may have been extremely demanding to free your slaves in following the principle that slavery is wrong.

You can imagine the monetary costs, the social costs, and so forth might even impoverish you. But we don't care in as far as the acceptability of this principle goes. We don't treat that as any evidence that the principle slavery is wrong is problematic. We think, so what? Sometimes it is extremely demanding to do the right thing. And that doesn't mean it's not the right thing.

He also gives the example of uh getting involved for s in certain places around the world, getting involved in drug dealing uh with its associated violence. Avoiding that lifestyle could be extremely demanding for certain people. So in certain very poor areas, perhaps. uh m certain very significant economic costs uh to that, or economic benefits at least, that you do without. if you don't get involved in that lifestyle. And perhaps again you could think of social costs as well.

Even so, Murphy says, we don't think this is any evidence that in those contexts it's morally permissible to become a violent drug dealer. You might think, of course, it reduces the blame on someone who does, or maybe removes it entirely. But that once again is a point about the moral status of the person, not the moral status of the action or lifestyle. So he says this is one striking fact is that we seem to be picking on principles of beneficence here.

We don't pick on constraints against slavery for being extremely demanding, or constraints about against becoming a violent drug dealer, even in those contexts when not doing so would be extremely demanding. And moreover, it's entirely unclear why, if principles of beneficence are problematic for being extremely demanding. We single them out. What's so special about those extreme demands that makes them problematic, but not the other extreme demands? Thank you.

And he allows that maybe somebody can come along and explain this to him uh why this is the case. But he says for now, I can't see any reason why we would pick on these alone for being extremely demanding. That's one argument against the view that principles of demanding principles of beneficence are problematic for being highly demanding. Another argument, uh which is rather subtle

is this. So when we say that a principle should be rejected because it's too demanding, This seems to presuppose that we have a sense of how demanding morality ought to be. and a sense that's independent of our beliefs about what the right moral principles are. So it sounds like when we criticize it for being too demanding.

We have some sense of how demanding it ought to be and saying, well this principle doesn't meet that standard or fails by that test. And moreover, our sense is independent of what we think the right principles are. Murphy suggests this is just not true. He thinks that if you were to try to say how demanding a moral principle ought to be Without basing your claim on what you think the right principles are. you wouldn't know what to say. You wouldn't have any sense of how to proceed.

What he thinks is going on is that when we criticize a principle for being too demanding. We are reiter we're in effect just reiterating our belief that that principle is wrong, is not the right kind of principle. So there are several beliefs that we have about moral principles. And we think that the appropriate demands for a principle are whatever demands those principles we already accept set. whatever demands they make.

And if we don't include a principle already in that set of beliefs about acceptable moral principles, and it makes a demand that is above what they require then we may well express our belief in the unacceptability of that principle by saying it's too demanding. But the demandingness can't be the problem on that way of looking at things. It fails on other grounds to belong to the right set of principles that set the appropriate demands.

So that's another reason he gives for doubting that the extremity of the demands is really the issue here.

Rather, what Murphy thinks is that various extreme principles of beneficence, like Singers, are problematic because in various situations And in most situations of the actual world, for well off people, they impose unfair demands on people. So the basic thought is this. If everybody were complying with Singer's principle So Prevent suffering and death if you can do so without sacrificing something nearly as important.

If everybody complied with that principle, then it would be a lot easier for each person to comply with it. So there'd be a lot less suffering and death pretty quickly. Maybe we'd even eliminate s uh certain kinds of preventable suffering and death. And each person then wouldn't have to spend their resources on preventing it. But part of the reason it is so demanding in the real world is that most people aren't following it.

And Singer's explicit about this. He says it should make no difference how many other people are complying with it. Whether you have to comply with it. And in fact if they aren't complying with it, you have to take up the slack as much as you can. Until of course you start to make sacrifice of something nearly as important.

So Murphy thinks it's a natural reaction to this to think, well, that's not fair. Why should I have to do more simply because other people are failing in their duties to follow it? And to give a bit more flesh to this kind of basic thought. He argues that principles of beneficence, as he puts it, are addressed to us as a group. So they're not addressed to each of us individually. I'll explain what that means. Thank you.

So Murphy suggests that, to use a often used term, principles of beneficence alone are, as he puts it, agent neutral. And in his sense. What this means is that they give each of us the very same aim. Make sure others are benefited. He's the gram sort of grammatical construction he uses the aim that well being be promoted. In some way and to some extent, depending on the principle. So each of us has that aim given to us by a principle of beneficence that well being be promoted.

This makes it different from what in his usage he calls agent relative. which give to each agent, each person, a different aim. So take the principle that it's wrong to torture. This gives me the aim that I not torture, and it gives you the aim that you not torture. And it's important to see those are different aims. One is about me and the other is about you. On this way of looking at things, at least. It doesn't give us the aim that torture be minimized.

it would be acceptable to torture, provided that minimized overall torture. But, at least on the normal understanding of the prohibition against torture, in most circumstances it's not okay to torture, even to minimize overall torture. So the aim given to me is that I not torture. My aim is not minimize torture. That I not torture. And similarly the aim given to you is that you not torture, so forth.

Now, principles of beneficence, he says, are really not like that. So they don't say, they don't give you the aim that you benefit others. They do give you the aim that b that people be benefited optimally in whatever way that is. And to whatever extent that is. specified by the principal. He says in fact it would be very weird if they gave us an a uh agent relative aim.

So if they gave you the aim that you benefit people, because then it would be okay to muscle somebody aside who's benefiting someone, maybe more efficiently or better, and make sure that you benefit them. In a case like that, it says let them do their work if they're better at benefiting others than you are. It's in that sense that it gives us the aim to ensure that people be benefited, not that some particular individual benefit them.

So it's in that and it's also in that sense that these principles are addressed to us as a group, rather than to each of us individually. in the way the prohibition against torture is addressed to us individually. Each of us individually. And the striking thing about that is that because we all have a common aim given to us by a principle of beneficence.

Our responsibilities that that principle sets are fulfilled provided that people provided the group is benefiting people optimally, according to that principle. So it doesn't matter if I'm actually acting or actively benefiting the person, provided that the group is creating the best benefit. The optimal benefit. So if the group produces the optimal benefit only by me standing back and letting other people do their work, I fulfilled my obligations with regard to that principle.

Because if I were to get involved and that were to make and that and it could be foreseen of course and all that If that could be foreseen that it will make the group benefit people less or less than optimally, I'm violating my duties of beneficence. Because remember, it doesn't give me the aim, make sure my own agency benefits them. It gives me the aim. Make sure they are benefited optimally.

So then Murphy suggests, well, when a principal gives a group a common aim rather than each member a different aim, we can ask a question about it. What happens if not everybody in the group? fulfills their responsibilities, if they shirk the responsibilities given to them by the principal. What, in particular, are the responsibilities of other members of the group in that situation?

And he thinks that principles of beneficence like Singer's and many others fail to give a good answer to that question of the responsibilities of other people when certain members of the group shirk their responsibilities. You have to sacrifice more is the answer they give. You have to do more and take up the slack in those cases. When others don't comply with the principle.

And he thinks this is the best explanation of what's problematic about those kinds of principles. Given that the explanation is not that they're so highly demanding. more plausible explanation to say that they are unfair in situations where not everyone complies with the principle. And I'll get on to the view Murphy develops on this basis in a moment.

But the last argument I'd like to take a look at is a relatively recent one presented by Garrett Cullity. Thank you. Culti to pres prevent present his objection against Highly demanding principles of beneficence. introduces a bit of terminology. So the first term he introduced is is the term an altruistically focused life. So s an altruistically focused life is one in which I constrict the pursuit of my own fulfillment as much as I bearably and usefully can in order to help others.

Quite obviously, many principles of beneficence relevant to this discussion require that require you to live an altruistically focused life. And what he describes as the fulfillment of a non altruistically focused life. are those sources of fulfillment that are inconsistent with an altruistically focused life. And here he gives the example of friendships governed by an attitude of, as he puts it, seeking opportunities to amplify and expand involvement in one another's lives.

That's a certain kind of friendship that he thinks is not possible in an altruistically focused life. In an altruistically focused life, you have to always be on the alert for opportunities to benefit others. And to constrict your friendship, if necessary, or your involvement with your friends, if necessary, to benefit other people. We don't tend to think, he says, that that's the best kind of friendship.

A better kind of friendship is a kind in which you're looking for more opportunities, to some extent at least, to spend more time together, to get involved in similar things, projects and so forth together. That he thinks is one clear fulfillment of a non altruistically focused life. Another, he thinks, is commitments to projects and interests. That involves an aspiration to expand our contact with those good things. So suppose you're interested in music or art.

one kind of interest in those things involves an aspiration to see more art, see more music. Not see music, but hear more music. And he thinks those are certain special kinds of fulfilment of what he calls a non altruistically focused life. Thank you. Now a key step in his argument, then, is to say this. One reason why poverty is bad and one reason why we have a reason are or one thing that gives us a reason to help people living in poverty.

is the interest they have in living a non altruistically focused life. So he thinks quite obviously one of the many, many reasons why poverty is a horrible thing is that it denies people these kinds of fulfilments. If you're spending all your time thinking about survival, you're not spending much time listening to music. cultivating these kinds of friendships and so forth. That's one among the many reasons why poverty is a bad thing.

And people's interests in these kinds of fulfillments give us a reason to help them. Other interests of theirs also give us a reason, so their interest in living at all. as opposed to dying young, also give us a reason to help them. So it's not the claim that this is the only thing that gives us a reason to help them, but this is at least one their interest in living a non altruistically focused life, having the fulfillments characteristic of that.

However, He says, if it were wrong, so many principles of beneficence. claim that it's wrong to live, at least in current circumstances, a non altruistically focused life. That's what makes them so demanding, is they require us to constrict the pursuit of those fulfillments to benefit others, at least in current circumstances of the world.

But, says Cullity, if it were wrong in current circumstances to live a non altruistically focused life, then the interests of poor people in living such a life could not give us a reason to help them. For the simple reason that If that were right, then that interest would be an interest in having something that it's wrong for them to have. And an interest in something that is wrong for you to have cannot give anybody a reason to help you. He illustrates this with the example of a gangster.

whose gun jams when they're trying to murder somebody. He says, Well, this person has an interest in murdering the guy, but that interest is an interest in something it's wrong for them to do. That interest quite clearly doesn't give us a reason to unjam his gun to help him in that way. So I think it's pretty hard to deny that an interest in something that it's wrong for you to do or to have cannot give anybody a reason to help you. But quite clearly

The interest of many people in living a non altruistically focused life does give us a reason to help them. The interest of the poor in living a non altruistically focused life gives us a reason to help them. Therefore, it must be permissible to live a non altruistically focused life, contrary to what various extreme principles of beneficence. Now that's very, very general. That doesn't yet tell us which fulfilments are morally permissible.

Uh but it does imply that we don't have a duty, we're not required morally, to live an altruistically focused life. So that's Cullity's objection to these extreme demands.

I'm going to finish just briefly by discussing some of the alternative principles of beneficence that have been offered less demanding ones. I may get into more detail about these next time. Uh but I've focused on the objections to the extremely demanding ones, partly because it ties in with a lot of areas of ethics, partly because a lot of important material has been written on it, and also because it's just a very difficult problem.

But supposing that problem is solved or has been solved, were solved, what are the alternatives? Does it mean we have no duties of beneficence to the global poor? Many people who reject extreme principles say no. We still do have duties of beneficence to the global poor. So returning to Murphy, who, as we said, denies that a principle can be can impose these kinds of unfair demands offers this as an alternative.

I mean actually I should say his actual principle is significantly more nuanced and complex than what I'm about to give you. Uh you can take a look at his book Moral Demands in Non-Ideal Theory if you want uh the detail. The basic idea is this. Murphy says each person has a duty to make to do whatever makes the outcome best. if everyone is complying with this very principle. So it's a qualified kind of consequentialist principle.

However, if not everyone is complying with this principle to make the outcome best, then first of all, you don't have a duty to sacrifice more than you would have to sacrifice if everyone were to comply with the principle from now on. So the upper limit on the sacrifices you are required to make. is determined by figuring out what kind of sacrifice would you have to make if everybody were to comply with the principle from now on. the principle to make the outcome best.

That sets a bound on what your duty in non ideal circumstances can be circumstances of partial compliance. What your duty is, is to make the outcome as good as you can make it. in current circumstances without sacrificing more than that level of sacrifice that I just mentioned. That, very briefly, is Murphy's view. Cullity bases his view on the kind of considerations that I just mentioned.

So he uses this as a test, uh the following as a test of whether it's permissible to have some amount of money or some good in your life. So he says, if it is absurd to deny that your pursuing or having X can ground requirements on others to help you, then your pursuing or having X violates no requirement of beneficence. So if it would be absurd, for example, to deny that uh your loss of a that certain kind of friendship that I mentioned could give a person a reason to help you.

to provide you with that kind of friendship, opportunities for that at least, could give you a reason someone a reason to help you, then it's permissible to have that kind of friendship. At least from the point of view of beneficence, because of course there might be other reasons why it's not permissible. But no v requirement of beneficence is violated in that case.

So College says I am required to keep contributing my time and money to aid agencies or to some other comparably important cause until I reach an overall level of personal spending. For which either which either satisfies that test that I just mentioned, the level of spending that could give rise to duties on others to help you. Your interest in which could give rise to duties. on others to help you, or at least that it would be absurd to deny that's the case.

Or that it's a level of spending that's required to have some good that is of that kind, that could give rise to duties on others to help you. Or that it would be absurd to deny, once again, that it could give rise to a requirement to help you. As I say, that's a very brief summary of some of those views. Again, much more detail in Cullety's book, Moral Demands of Affluence, which I've given reference to on the back of the handout.

A more detailed version of that handout is going to be on WebLearn. Uh and a more detailed version from every week will be on Web Learn. In the next two weeks we're going to look at the other two arguments for duties to the global poor that I mentioned at the start, arguments from distributive justice and arguments from harm. Thanks very much.