Help and Beneficence
Files
Description
Which people are we morally required to help, and to what extent? In a world where the basic needs of many millions remain unmet, this is a philosophical question of great practical urgency. A minimal position is that while it is always praiseworthy to help someone, we are morally required to help only those to whom we stand in some special relation. In addition to the objections that it is too minimal, this view faces difficulties in accounting for emergency cases, in which once could, for example, save a stranger’s life at little cost to oneself. More stringent views that place no restrictions on the range of people to be helped do not have these difficulties; they do, however, raise the intractable problem of how much we must sacrifice for the sake of others.
Source Publication
Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Editors/Authors
Edward Craig
Publication Date
1998
Volume Number
4: Genealogy to Iqbal
Recommended Citation
Murphy, Liam B., "Help and Beneficence" (1998). Faculty Chapters. 1984.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1984
