Some philosophers defend an extremely demanding and far-reaching principle of obligatory beneficence. Peter Singer’s theory has been the most widely discussed such theory in recent decades. In his early work, Singer distinguished between preventing evil and promoting good and contended that persons in affluent nations are morally obligated to prevent something bad or evil from happening if it is in their power to do so without having to sacrifice anything of comparable moral importance. In the face of preventable disease and poverty, for example, we ought to donate time and resources toward their eradication until we reach a level at which, by giving more, we would cause as much suffering to ourselves as we would relieve through our gift. While Singer leaves it an open question what counts as of moral importance, his argument implies that morality sometimes requires us to make large sacrifices to rescue needy persons around the world.
This claim implies that morality sometimes requires us to make enormous sacrifices. It would appear that the demand is placed not only on individuals with disposable incomes, but on all reasonably well-off persons, foundations, governments, corporations, etc. For all of these parties, there is a duty to refrain from spending resources on nonessential items, and to provide the available resources or savings to lend assistance to those in urgent need. Frills, fashion, luxuries, and the like are never to determine expenditures, and one is to give to the needy up to the point that one (or one’s dependent) would be impoverished. Singer did not regard such conduct as a significant moral sacrifice, only the discharge of an obligation of beneficence.
Singer’s proposals have struck many as far too demanding, as impracticable, and as a significant departure from the demands of ordinary morality. This assessment generated a number of criticisms, as well as defenses, demanding principles of beneficence such as the one proposed by Singer. Critics continue today to argue that a principle of beneficence that requires persons, governments, and corporations to seriously disrupt their projects and plans in order to benefit the poor and underprivileged exceed the limits of ordinary moral obligations and have no plausible grounding in moral theory. They argue that the line between the obligatory and the supererogatory has been erased by such a principle; in effect, the claim is that an aspirational moral ideal has replaced real moral obligation.
Singer attempted to reformulate his position so that his theory of beneficence does not set an overly demanding standard. He proposed that there is no clear justification for the claim that obligations of ordinary morality do not contain a highly demanding principle of beneficence, most notably a harm prevention principle. He apparently would explain the lack of concern often shown for poverty relief as a failure to draw the correct implications from the very principles of beneficence that ordinary morality embraces. Later in his career Singer has attempted to take account of objections that his principle sets an unduly high a standard. He has not given up his strong principle of beneficence, but he has suggested that it might be morally wise and most productive to publicly advocate a lower standard—that is, a weakened principle of beneficence. He therefore proposed a more guarded formulation of the principle, arguing that we should strive for a round percentage of income, around 10 per cent, which means more than a token donation and yet also not so high as to make us miserable or into moral saints. This standard, Singer proclaimed, is the minimum that we ought to do to conform to obligations of beneficence.
Controversy continues today about how to cast the commitments of a principle of beneficence, including how to formulate limits that reduce required costs and impacts on the agent’s life plans and that make meeting one’s obligations of beneficence a realistic possibility. Various writers have noted that even after persons have donated generous portions of their income, they could still donate more; and, according to any strong principle of beneficence, they should donate more. There seem to be no theoretical or practical limits of donation and sacrifice. However, it does not follow that we should give up a principle of beneficence. It only follows that moral limits of the demands of beneficence is a very difficult moral problem.
Liam Murphy has proposed to fix the limits of individual beneficence to meet global problems of need by a cooperative principle of fairness in which, in any given circumstance, it is first to be determined what each reasonably affluent person must do to contribute a fair share to an optimal outcome. In this conception, an individual is only required to aid others beneficently at the level that would produce the best consequences if all in society were to give their fair share. One is not required to do more if others fail in their obligations of beneficence. Unlike act-consequentialism, this theory does not demand more of agents whenever expected compliance by others decreases.
Murphy’s cooperative principle is intuitively attractive, but it is not clear whether it is a principle with the necessary moral punch to address issues such as global poverty. Murphy seems right to suggest that large-scale problems requiring beneficence should be conceived as cooperative projects. But his limit on individual obligations seems unlikely to increase international aid much beyond present levels. Moreover, if, as seems likely in virtually all situations of global poverty, others will not comply with their obligations of beneficence, it is not clear why each person’s obligation is set only by the original calculation of a single fair share.
In his 2007 Uehiro Lectures on Global Poverty, Singer defended his lines of argument about beneficence including the public advocacy thesis (see the Other Internet Resources). However, a difference of emphasis is present, together with a sympathetic response to Murphy. Singer is concerned with which social conditions will motivate people to give, rather than with attempting to determine obligations of beneficence with precision. Singer responds to critics such as Murphy by conceding that perhaps the limit of what we should publicly advocate as a level of giving is indeed no more than a person’s fair share of what is needed to relieve poverty and the like. Unless we draw the line here, we might not be able to motivate people to give at all. A fair share would be a considerably lower threshold of one’s obligations than the obligation Singer originally envisaged, but far more realistic. The emphasis on motivation to give is a more subtle and convincing approach to the nature and limits of beneficence.
Wherever the line of precise limits of obligatory beneficence is drawn, the line is likely to be revisionary, in the sense that it will draw a sharper boundary on our obligations than exists in ordinary morality. Singer’s proposals, unlike Murphy’s, have generally been taken as representing a revision of ordinary morality’s requirements of beneficence, despite the faint presence in the history of Western morality of religious obligations of tithing. A variety of proposals of limits of beneficence have been made by philosophers, but no agreement even on a general principle exists, thus prompting many to doubt that it is possible for ethical theory or practical deliberation to set precise, determinate conditions of beneficence.
Referência
- Tom Beauchamp, “The Principle of Beneficence in Applied Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), §4.
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