The facts about world poverty are easy to come by and continually shocking. Over a billion people live in extreme poverty (that is, on less than 70p per day). Extreme poverty implies hunger, malnutrition, disease and high infant mortality. One third of all human deaths are the result of extreme poverty and over 25,000 children die of poverty-related causes every day. There are, in contrast, many wealthy governments and individuals—the richest 2% in the world own over half of all household wealth—who are in a position to give money and resources to reduce this poverty and alleviate this suffering.
In the light of such facts, our instinctive compassion may tell us that the wealthy have a moral obligation to act, and we may even count ourselves among the fortunate; but in practice our own priorities, or the nearer concerns of our own society, begin to override that compassion and few of us give or do as much as we could. So how and where, if at all, should we direct our actions? What obligation are we under to help? There are a number of issues that need to be approached philosophically before we can be sure of the answers to these questions.
One word that occurs in this connection is charity, but this may not be the most appropriate term to use. Charity usually implies an act above and beyond that of moral obligation, something supererogatory, and tends to be applied only at the individual level. For instance, giving money to a homeless person is a morally positive act of charity but is not required of us. The scope and urgency of global poverty demand a different and more far-reaching moral description.
A better approach is to consider the notion of justice and the demands of a just society. Justice is, of course, a central ethical concept: it has the status of a duty in most deontological systems like Kant’s; it is regularly on any list of virtues; and few would disagree that a just society will increase overall happiness. It also implies consideration of society as a whole and the general structures of distribution. Definitions of justice, however, vary significantly from thinker to thinker. One way of establishing the basic principles of a just society was suggested by John Rawls in his book A Theory of Justice. In an attempt to detach the notion of justice from personal concerns, Rawls imagined that the future members of a society are allowed to choose the structures and values of that society before they enter it. But there is a catch:
...no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status, nor does any one know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence, strength and the like. I shall even assume that the parties do not know their conceptions of the good or their special psychological propensities. The principles of justice are chosen behind a veil of ignorance. A Theory of Justice 11
Under such conditions (what Rawls calls the ‘original position’) it seems unlikely that anyone would advocate slavery, for example, in case they were cast as a slave in this society. Similarly, no one would wish for extreme poverty to exist in case they themselves were to become a victim of such poverty—or, at least, they would ensure that there was some mechanism to alleviate that poverty, perhaps through aid, progressive taxation or another principle of distributive justice. Therefore any moral obligation to be just leads to an obligation to act to reduce that poverty by changing our present practices (exploitation of workers, unfair taxation, allocation of aid etc) to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth.
One straightforward means of redistributing wealth more justly is the giving of financial aid—an act which is accessible to the individual as well as governments. Since aid is a means to an end (ultimately, the reduction or abolition of poverty), it is worth asking what form that end should take. Familiar economic development on the Western model may not, in the long run, be the right solution: such economic prosperity rarely benefits the very poor and it may well be Western economies who have the most to gain from an increased international market. Furthermore, economic growth for the very poor does not necessarily require a more general growth. We may also state the desired end in terms that are not financial: increased opportunities, quality of life, ecologically sustainable development, and so on; and even raise questions about the process of distribution itself. Should resources be allocated equally? or according to individual characteristics such as need or merit? or according to free market transactions?
Although it seems clear that we have a duty to ensure a more just distribution of wealth and to help the extremely poor, several objections are often voiced against this. People sometimes say that they will not donate because the aid does not reach the people who need it most but ends up in the pockets of corrupt officials. While there is undoubtedly some truth in this, clearly some aid does reach the poor; and a duty to help cannot be disregarded in the face of practical difficulties. A person should perhaps choose a different charity or lobby for change to allow them to donate successfully. This is mostly a dispute over facts: the claim that aid never reaches the poor is factually untrue. Similar factual disputes include the objections that development aid will lead to unwelcome population growth or that encouraging development will cause greater environmental damage. In both cases the facts are debatable: developed countries tend to have lower birth rates, for example, and it is overdeveloped nations that are responsible for most ecological damage. These are not strong objections, therefore, to our general duty to ensure a just distribution of wealth.
A more telling objection is often expressed in the commonplace ‘charity begins at home’. Stated more formally, our moral duty derives to some extent from the closeness of other people: we owe a greater duty, for example, to our family and friends than to strangers. Our duty to help the poor on our own doorstep overrides our duty to help the poor on the other side of the world—we should therefore only concern ourselves with our own society. This position however implies an assumption about what a society is, and arbitrarily restricts our moral concerns to that society. But why should our moral concern be limited in this way? Surely we should take into account all those individuals who are or will be affected by our actions—including, in the case of future generations, individuals who do not yet exist. Moreover it is hard to deny that our actions do affect remote nations: the society in which we operate now is the whole world, and this global society has come to define the scope of our moral duty. This is particularly true, of course, for moral agents like multinational companies and state governments.
Another interesting objection is that we do not, in fact, have a general duty to help others; only a duty not to harm them. This distinction between moral acts and moral omissions is a subtle one and is certainly important. However, the distinction is also somewhat blurry: serious harm often arises unintentionally from the acts of individuals (think of environmental damage, or the consequences of free trade), and in these cases we can be held responsible and obliged to help repair that harm. Furthermore, our failure to help alleviate poverty can be seen as part of the causal chain that leads to poverty: if we are able to prevent an evil, then we should be held responsible if that evil occurs. This helps to explain why we feel guilty when we spend extravagantly on ourselves: although we may feel no prior obligation to give that money to others, we become aware that in doing so we would have made a difference. Our failure to do otherwise feels more like a responsible act than a mere omission.
Peter Singer has argued from utilitarian principles that we should recognise the moral claim that extreme poverty makes on us. He uses a powerful analogy to emphasise his point:
If I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.
Clearly it is unacceptable not to help the child. By the same reasoning, whenever we see someone dying of malnutrition or a preventable disease on the news, we have an obligation to help them. Saving a life will always carry more utility than whatever small sacrifice we have to make to save that life.
The shocking facts of extreme poverty generate a sense of moral urgency that is less keenly felt with regard to other issues. The threats to life, freedom, self-determination and dignity create a very real need for action. This moral urgency is also felt at an individual level: while we may have to decide between competing obligations—to our family, for instance, or to more local emergencies—we are failing in our duty if we do not choose to act globally.
We can use normative theories to help us decide between these competing obligations. A utilitarian might argue that to donate £10 to an overseas charity will generate more utility than donating the same amount to a domestic cause; a duty of beneficence, or a duty to alleviate suffering, might inspire in us the same behaviour; and an ethics of virtue will place emphasis upon the virtues of compassion or generosity. In each case, the rational demand is that we give as much as possible to make the most significant improvement to the situation. Of course, our obligations to ourselves and those aspects of our lives to which we are committed—education, job, family—are also legitimate and will therefore place some limits on our obligation to alleviate poverty. It is not easy to determine how this balance should be achieved, but it seems clear that a balance is, at least, possible.
Whatever normative theory we adopt, we can recognise that global poverty has a special moral seriousness that places a direct claim on our behaviour. It is within our power to make an appreciable difference to the lives of others, and that in itself is enough to demand our moral engagement.