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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Peter Singer's drowning child argument demonstrates that ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→A global equality requirement is deeply counterintuitive

    Peter Singer's drowning child argument demonstrates that physical distance is morally irrelevant to the duty to prevent serious harm.

    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Moral duties are based on facts about harm and ability to prevent it, not on spatial location or causal proximity to the victim.
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    • 2.If distance were morally relevant, we'd have to accept that the same harm becomes less obligatory to prevent as it gets farther away, which lacks principled justification.
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    • 3.Modern communication and resource transfer make distant suffering equally accessible to our action as nearby suffering, eliminating practical distance.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Special obligations to those within our institutional relationships, communities, or families create genuine moral distinctions that distance alone cannot explain away.
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    • 2.Demanding equal sacrifice for all distant harms would require most moral agents to abandon their own projects and commitments entirely, which may be psychologically unrealistic.
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    • 3.Indirect causal chains to distant harms involve uncertain outcomes and diffuse responsibility in ways that differ morally from direct, immediate prevention.
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    Democracy & Governance1 linkedRights & Liberty1 linked

    Related

    A global equality requirement is deeply counterintuitiveDemanding equal sacrifice for all distant harms would require most moral agents ...If distance were morally relevant, we'd have to accept that the same harm become...Indirect causal chains to distant harms involve uncertain outcomes and diffuse r...
    +3 moreShow less
    Modern communication and resource transfer make distant suffering equally access...Moral duties are based on facts about harm and ability to prevent it, not on spa...Special obligations to those within our institutional relationships, communities...

    Details

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    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit