odespinner

It was easy to understand Peter Singer’s moral imperative to rescue a drowning child from a pond and, by analogy to see the moral obligation to do what we can to prevent starvation in distant parts of the globe.

A different viewpoint is expressed by Garrett Harding in a contentious article ‘Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor’. His argument boils down to nations adopting policies that protect their economies, limit population growth and hoard their resources even if they could donate surplus food to aid other nations in danger of famine.

Is it morally defensible to adopt a policy that basically says ‘you brought this on yourselves through overpopulation and by growing insufficient crops, so we won’t help you’ ?