Ethics

Are average people in the first world morally obligated to help people the third world?

Comments

Most would recognize such an obligation as arising simply from the fact that many of them are exposed to life-threatening poverty that we can protect them from at very small cost to ourselves. The bottom sixth of the world's population live on under $100 per person per year (under $500 purchasing power), the top sixth -- those average people in the first world -- live on ca. $30,000 per person per year. So even one percent of our income would typically suffice to double the incomes of three extremely poor people. It does not seem right to refuse to given even this one percent while 18 million people are dying each year from poverty-related causes.

The obligation comes to look even more plausible, and stronger, when one inquires into the present distribution of wealth. Given the history of unjust conquest, colonialism, genocide, and slavery, it cannot be said that the great economic advantage we have been enjoying from birth (and the great economic disadvantage they have suffered from birth) has come about through a fair historical process. And the preservation of our advantage (and their disadvantage) also depends on blatantly unfair global rules (governing trade, labor, investment, intellectual property, etc.) that our governments, in virtue of their vastly greater bargaining power and expertise, succeed in imposing on the world. These further factors cast a shadow over our holdings, casting doubt on whether we are really morally entitled to all the wealth that is legally ours. Insofar as we are not, our efforts to protect the global poor from the great harms and risks they are facing may not be best described as "helping" -- but rather as efforts to shield them from the effects of injustices that we contribute to or profit from. The obligation to protect people in great need is more plausible, and stronger, when we are implicated in their need in one of these ways.

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