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Theron Pummer, The Ethics of Giving: Philosophers’ Perspectives on Philanthropy, The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 70, Issue 279, April 2020, Pages 426–429, https://doi.org/10.1093/pq/pqz032
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Extract
This volume advances the ethics of charitable giving in a variety of interesting and significant ways. It is comprised of six chapters by contributors, as well as an introduction and afterword by the editor.
A recurring question throughout the volume concerns the extent to which non-consequentialist ethical theories can support effective altruism (3–4). Though it is difficult to answer this question without a shared definition of effective altruism, it seems a key philosophical issue here is whether, when, and how non-consequentialist theories would support the impartial maximization of well-being (assuming no constraints are violated).
Paul Woodruff, the volume's editor, provides handy summaries of each of the chapters in his introduction (4–11). Rather than reproduce these summaries, I will briefly highlight some points I found particularly noteworthy.
Thomas E. Hill Jr. explores the implications of Kantian ethics for philanthropy. Many are aware that, on a Kantian view, our duty to help others is imperfect in that it does not determine how, when, or how much to help (22). I suspect far fewer are aware of the passages Hill cites suggesting that Kant—in my view rightly—invokes a strict and determinate duty to help in emergency rescue cases, as when you can save a drowning child at little cost to yourself (27). This is striking, especially since some suitably specified cases of charitable giving are arguably (relevantly like) emergency rescue cases. At least, it is difficult to see how one could fail to help in such cases if one truly made the happiness of others an end of one's own, which, according to Kant, one has a strict duty of virtue to do (22).
