Famine, Affluence, and Morality
PETER SINGER
Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring 1972), pp. 229-243 [revised edition]
As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical
care. The suffering and death that are occurring there now are not inevitable, not unavoidable in any
fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million
people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond the capacity of the richer nations to give
enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to very small proportions. The decisions and actions of
human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary
decisions. At the individual level, people have, with very few exceptions, not responded to the situation in
any significant way. Generally speaking, people have not given large sums to relief funds; they have not
written to their parliamentary representatives demanding increased government assistance; they have not
demonstrated in the streets, held symbolic fasts, or done anything else directed toward providing the
refugees with the means to satisfy their essential needs. At the government level, no government has given
the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive for more than a few days. Britain, for
instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative
purposes, Britain's share of the nonrecoverable development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is
already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,000. The implication is
that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as highly as it values the
lives of the nine million refugees. Australia is another country which, on a per capita basis, is well up in the
"aid to Bengal" table. Australia's aid, however, amounts to less than one-twelfth of the cost of Sydney's new
opera house. The total amount given, from all sources, now stands at about £65,000,000. The estimated
cost of keeping the refugees alive for one year is £464,000,000. Most of the refugees have now been in the
camps for more than six months. The World Bank has said that India needs a minimum of £300,000,000 in
assistance from other countries before the end of the year. It seems obvious that assistance on this scale
will not be forthcoming. India will be forced to choose between letting the refugees starve or diverting
funds from her own development program, which will mean that more of her own people will starve in
the future. [1]

These are the essential facts about the present situation in Bengal. So far as it concerns us here, there is
nothing unique about this situation except its magnitude. The Bengal emergency is just the latest and most
acute of a series of major emergencies in various parts of the world, arising both from natural and from
manmade causes. There are also many parts of the world in which people die from malnutrition and lack of
food independent of any special emergency. I take Bengal as my example only because it is the present
concern, and because the size of the problem has ensured that it has been given adequate publicity.
Neither individuals nor governments can claim to be unaware of what is happening there.
What are the moral implications of a situation like this? In what follows, I shall argue that the way people in
relatively affluent countries react to a situation like that in Bengal cannot be justified; indeed, the whole
way we look at moral issues - our moral conceptual scheme - needs to be altered, and with it, the way of
life that has come to be taken for granted in our society.

In arguing for this conclusion I will not, of course, claim to be morally neutral. I shall, however, try to argue
for the moral position that I take, so that anyone who accepts certain assumptions, to be made explicit,
will, I hope, accept my conclusion.
 
I begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. I
think most people will agree about this, although one may reach the same view by different routes. I shall
not argue for this view. People can hold all sorts of eccentric positions, and perhaps from some of them it
would not follow that death by starvation is in itself bad. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to refute such 
positions, and so for brevity I will henceforth take this assumption as accepted. Those who disagree need
read no further.
 
My next point is this: if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby
sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. By "without sacrificing
anything of comparable moral importance" I mean without causing anything else comparably bad to happen,
or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral good, comparable in
significance to the bad thing that we can prevent. This principle seems almost as uncontroversial as the last
one. It requires us only to prevent what is bad, and to promote what is good, and it requires this of us only
when we can do it without sacrificing anything that is, from the moral point of view, comparably important.
I could even, as far as the application of my argument to the Bengal emergency is concerned, qualify the
point so as to make it: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby
sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. An application of this principle would
be as follows: 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.

The uncontroversial appearance of the principle just stated is deceptive. If it were acted upon, even in its
qualified form, our lives, our society, and our world would be fundamentally changed. For the principle
takes, firstly, no account of proximity or distance. It makes no moral difference whether the person I can
help is a neighbor's child ten yards from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles
away. Secondly, the principle makes no distinction between cases in which I am the only person who could
possibly do anything and cases in which I am just one among millions in the same position.
I do not think I need to say much in defense of the refusal to take proximity and distance into account. The
fact that a person is physically near to us, so that we have personal contact with him, may make it more
likely that we shall assist him, but this does not show that we ought to help him rather than another who
happens to be further away. If we accept any principle of impartiality, universalizability, equality, or
whatever, we cannot discriminate against someone merely because he is far away from us (or we are far
away from him). Admittedly, it is possible that we are in a better position to judge what needs to be done
to help a person near to us than one far away, and perhaps also to provide the assistance we judge to be
necessary. If this were the case, it would be a reason for helping those near to us first. This may once have
been a justification for being more concerned with the poor in one's town than with famine victims in India.
Unfortunately for those who like to keep their moral responsibilities limited, instant communication and
swift transportation have changed the situation. From the moral point of view, the development of the
world into a "global village" has made an important, though still unrecognized, difference to our moral
situation. Expert observers and supervisors, sent out by famine relief organizations or permanently
stationed in famine-prone areas, can direct our aid to a refugee in Bengal almost as effectively as we could
get it to someone in our own block. There would seem, therefore, to be no possible justification for
discriminating on geographical grounds.

There may be a greater need to defend the second implication of my principle - that the fact that there are
millions of other people in the same position, in respect to the Bengali refugees, as I am, does not make the
situation significantly different from a situation in which I am the only person who can prevent something
very bad from occurring. Again, of course, I admit that there is a psychological difference between the
cases; one feels less guilty about doing nothing if one can point to others, similarly placed, who have also
done nothing. Yet this can make no real difference to our moral obligations. [2] Should I consider that I am
less obliged to pull the drowning child out of the pond if on looking around I see other people, no further
away than I am, who have also noticed the child but are doing nothing? One has only to ask this question to
see the absurdity of the view that numbers lessen obligation. It is a view that is an ideal excuse for
inactivity; unfortunately most of the major evils - poverty, overpopulation, pollution - are problems in
which everyone is almost equally involved.

The view that numbers do make a difference can be made plausible if stated in this way: if everyone in
circumstances like mine gave £5 to the Bengal Relief Fund, there would be enough to provide food, shelter,
and medical care for the refugees; there is no reason why I should give more than anyone else in the same
circumstances as I am; therefore I have no obligation to give more than £5. Each premise in this argument is
true, and the argument looks sound. It may convince us, unless we notice that it is based on a hypothetical
premise, although the conclusion is not stated hypothetically. The argument would be sound if the
conclusion were: if everyone in circumstances like mine were to give £5, I would have no obligation to give
more than £5. If the conclusion were so stated, however, it would be obvious that the argument has no
bearing on a situation in which it is not the case that everyone else gives £5. This, of course, is the actual
situation. It is more or less certain that not everyone in circumstances like mine will give £5. So there will
not be enough to provide the needed food, shelter, and medical care. Therefore by giving more than £5 I
will prevent more suffering than I would if I gave just £5.

It might be thought that this argument has an absurd consequence. Since the situation appears to be that
very few people are likely to give substantial amounts, it follows that I and everyone else in similar
circumstances ought to give as much as possible, that is, at least up to the point at which by giving more
one would begin to cause serious suffering for oneself and one's dependents - perhaps even beyond this
point to the point of marginal utility, at which by giving more one would cause oneself and one's
dependents as much suffering as one would prevent in Bengal. If everyone does this, however, there will be
more than can be used for the benefit of the refugees, and some of the sacrifice will have been
unnecessary. Thus, if everyone does what he ought to do, the result will not be as good as it would be if
everyone did a little less than he ought to do, or if only some do all that they ought to do.
The paradox here arises only if we assume that the actions in question - sending money to the relief funds -
are performed more or less simultaneously, and are also unexpected. For if it is to be expected that
everyone is going to contribute something, then clearly each is not obliged to give as much as he would
have been obliged to had others not been giving too. And if everyone is not acting more or less
simultaneously, then those giving later will know how much more is needed, and will have no obligation to
give more than is necessary to reach this amount. To say this is not to deny the principle that people in the
same circumstances have the same obligations, but to point out that the fact that others have given, or
may be expected to give, is a relevant circumstance: those giving after it has become known that many
others are giving and those giving before are not in the same circumstances. So the seemingly absurd
consequence of the principle I have put forward can occur only if people are in error about the actual
circumstances - that is, if they think they are giving when others are not, but in fact they are giving when
others are. The result of everyone doing what he really ought to do cannot be worse than the result of
everyone doing less than he ought to do, although the result of everyone doing what he reasonably believes
he ought to do could be.

If my argument so far has been sound, neither our distance from a preventable evil nor the number of other
people who, in respect to that evil, are in the same situation as we are, lessens our obligation to mitigate
or prevent that evil. I shall therefore take as established the principle I asserted earlier. As I have already
said, I need to assert it only in its qualified form: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from
happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it.
The outcome of this argument is that our traditional moral categories are upset. The traditional distinction
between duty and charity cannot be drawn, or at least, not in the place we normally draw it. Giving money
to the Bengal Relief Fund is regarded as an act of charity in our society. The bodies which collect money are
known as "charities." These organizations see themselves in this way - if you send them a check, you will be
thanked for your "generosity." Because giving money is regarded as an act of charity, it is not thought that
there is anything wrong with not giving. The charitable man may be praised, but the man who is not
charitable is not condemned. People do not feel in any way ashamed or guilty about spending money on
new clothes or a new car instead of giving it to famine relief. (Indeed, the alternative does not occur to
them.) This way of looking at the matter cannot be justified. When we buy new clothes not to keep
ourselves warm but to look "well-dressed" we are not providing for any important need. We would not be
sacrificing anything significant if we were to continue to wear our old clothes, and give the money to
famine relief. By doing so, we would be preventing another person from starving. It follows from what I
have said earlier that we ought to give money away, rather than spend it on clothes which we do not need
to keep us warm. To do so is not charitable, or generous. Nor is it the kind of act which philosophers and
theologians have called "supererogatory" - an act which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. On
the contrary, we ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so.
 
I am not maintaining that there are no acts which are charitable, or that there are no acts which it would
be good to do but not wrong not to do. It may be possible to redraw the distinction between duty and
charity in some other place. All I am arguing here is that the present way of drawing the distinction, which
makes it an act of charity for a man living at the level of affluence which most people in the "developed
nations" enjoy to give money to save someone else from starvation, cannot be supported. It is beyond the
scope of my argument to consider whether the distinction should be redrawn or abolished altogether. There
would be many other possible ways of drawing the distinction - for instance, one might decide that it is
good to make other people as happy as possible, but not wrong not to do so.

Despite the limited nature of the revision in our moral conceptual scheme which I am proposing, the
revision would, given the extent of both affluence and famine in the world today, have radical implications.
These implications may lead to further objections, distinct from those I have already considered. I shall
discuss two of these.

One objection to the position I have taken might be simply that it is too drastic a revision of our moral
scheme. People do not ordinarily judge in the way I have suggested they should. Most people reserve their
moral condemnation for those who violate some moral norm, such as the norm against taking another
person's property. They do not condemn those who indulge in luxury instead of giving to famine relief. But
given that I did not set out to present a morally neutral description of the way people make moral
judgments, the way people do in fact judge has nothing to do with the validity of my conclusion. My
conclusion follows from the principle which I advanced earlier, and unless that principle is rejected, or the
arguments are shown to be unsound, I think the conclusion must stand, however strange it appears. It
might, nevertheless, be interesting to consider why our society, and most other societies, do judge
differently from the way I have suggested they should. In a wellknown article, J. O. Urmson suggests that
the imperatives of duty, which tell us what we must do, as distinct from what it would be good to do but
not wrong not to do, function so as to prohibit behavior that is intolerable if men are to live together in
society. [3] This may explain the origin and continued existence of the present division between acts of
duty and acts of charity. Moral attitudes are shaped by the needs of society, and no doubt society needs
people who will observe the rules that make social existence tolerable. From the point of view of a
particular society, it is essential to prevent violations of norms against killing, stealing, and so on. It is quite
inessential, however, to help people outside one's own society.

If this is an explanation of our common distinction between duty and supererogation, however, it is not a
justification of it. The moral point of view requires us to look beyond the interests of our own society.
Previously, as I have already mentioned, this may hardly have been feasible, but it is quite feasible now.
From the moral point of view, the prevention of the starvation of millions of people outside our society
must be considered at least as pressing as the upholding of property norms within our society.
It has been argued by some writers, among them Sidgwick and Urmson, that we need to have a basic moral
code which is not too far beyond the capacities of the ordinary man, for otherwise there will be a general
breakdown of compliance with the moral code. Crudely stated, this argument suggests that if we tell
people that they ought to refrain from murder and give everything they do not really need to famine relief,
they will do neither, whereas if we tell them that they ought to refrain from murder and that it is good to
give to famine relief but not wrong not to do so, they will at least refrain from murder. The issue here is:
Where should we draw the line between conduct that is required and conduct that is good although not
required, so as to get the best possible result? This would seem to be an empirical question, although a very
difficult one. One objection to the Sidgwick-Urmson line of argument is that it takes insufficient account of
the effect that moral standards can have on the decisions we make. Given a society in which a wealthy man
who gives 5 percent of his income to famine relief is regarded as most generous, it is not surprising that a
proposal that we all ought to give away half our incomes will be thought to be absurdly unrealistic. In a
society which held that no man should have more than enough while others have less than they need, such
a proposal might seem narrow-minded. What it is possible for a man to do and what he is likely to do are
both, I think, very greatly influenced by what people around him are doing and expecting him to do. In any
case, the possibility that by spreading the idea that we ought to be doing very much more than we are to
relieve famine we shall bring about a general breakdown of moral behavior seems remote. If the stakes are
an end to widespread starvation, it is worth the risk. Finally, it should be emphasized that these
considerations are relevant only to the issue of what we should require from others, and not to what we
ourselves ought to do.

The second objection to my attack on the present distinction between duty and charity is one which has
from time to time been made against utilitarianism. It follows from some forms of utilitarian theory that we
all ought, morally, to be working full time to increase the balance of happiness over misery. The position I
have taken here would not lead to this conclusion in all circumstances, for if there were no bad occurrences
that we could prevent without sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, my argument would
have no application. Given the present conditions in many parts of the world, however, it does follow from
my argument that we ought, morally, to be working full time to relieve great suffering of the sort that
occurs as a result of famine or other disasters. Of course, mitigating circumstances can be adduced - for
instance, that if we wear ourselves out through overwork, we shall be less effective than we would
otherwise have been. Nevertheless, when all considerations of this sort have been taken into account, the
conclusion remains: we ought to be preventing as much suffering as we can without sacrificing something
else of comparable moral importance. This conclusion is one which we may be reluctant to face. I cannot
see, though, why it should be regarded as a criticism of the position for which I have argued, rather than a
criticism of our ordinary standards of behavior. Since most people are self-interested to some degree, very
few of us are likely to do everything that we ought to do. It would, however, hardly be honest to take this
as evidence that it is not the case that we ought to do it.

It may still be thought that my conclusions are so wildly out of line with what everyone else thinks and has
always thought that there must be something wrong with the argument somewhere. In order to show that
my conclusions, while certainly contrary to contemporary Western moral standards, would not have seemed
so extraordinary at other times and in other places, I would like to quote a passage from a writer not
normally thought of as a way-out radical, Thomas Aquinas.

Now, according to the natural order instituted by divine providence, material goods are
provided for the satisfaction of human needs. Therefore the division and appropriation of
property, which proceeds from human law, must not hinder the satisfaction of man's necessity
from such goods. Equally, whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to
the poor for their sustenance. So Ambrosius says, and it is also to be found in the Decretum
Gratiani: "The bread which you withhold belongs to the hungry; the clothing you shut away, to
the naked; and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the
penniless." [4]

I now want to consider a number of points, more practical than philosophical, which are relevant to the
application of the moral conclusion we have reached. These points challenge not the idea that we ought to
be doing all we can to prevent starvation, but the idea that giving away a great deal of money is the best
means to this end.

It is sometimes said that overseas aid should be a government responsibility, and that therefore one ought
not to give to privately run charities. Giving privately, it is said, allows the government and the
noncontributing members of society to escape their responsibilities.
 
This argument seems to assume that the more people there are who give to privately organized famine
relief funds, the less likely it is that the government will take over full responsibility for such aid. This
assumption is unsupported, and does not strike me as at all plausible. The opposite view - that if no one
gives voluntarily, a government will assume that its citizens are uninterested in famine relief and would not
wish to be forced into giving aid - seems more plausible. In any case, unless there were a definite
probability that by refusing to give one would be helping to bring about massive government assistance,
people who do refuse to make voluntary contributions are refusing to prevent a certain amount of suffering
without being able to point to any tangible beneficial consequence of their refusal. So the onus of showing
how their refusal will bring about government action is on those who refuse to give.

I do not, of course, want to dispute the contention that governments of affluent nations should be giving
many times the amount of genuine, no-strings-attached aid that they are giving now. I agree, too, that
giving privately is not enough, and that we ought to be campaigning actively for entirely new standards for
both public and private contributions to famine relief. Indeed, I would sympathize with someone who
thought that campaigning was more important than giving oneself, although I doubt whether preaching
what one does not practice would be very effective. Unfortunately, for many people the idea that "it's the
government's responsibility" is a reason for not giving which does not appear to entail any political action
either.

Another, more serious reason for not giving to famine relief funds is that until there is effective population
control, relieving famine merely postpones starvation. If we save the Bengal refugees now, others, perhaps
the children of these refugees, will face starvation in a few years' time. In support of this, one may cite the
now well-known facts about the population explosion and the relatively limited scope for expanded
production.

This point, like the previous one, is an argument against relieving suffering that is happening now, because
of a belief about what might happen in the future; it is unlike the previous point in that very good evidence
can be adduced in support of this belief about the future. I will not go into the evidence here. I accept that
the earth cannot support indefinitely a population rising at the present rate. This certainly poses a problem
for anyone who thinks it important to prevent famine. Again, however, one could accept the argument
without drawing the conclusion that it absolves one from any obligation to do anything to prevent famine.
The conclusion that should be drawn is that the best means of preventing famine, in the long run, is
population control. It would then follow from the position reached earlier that one ought to be doing all
one can to promote population control (unless one held that all forms of population control were wrong in
themselves, or would have significantly bad consequences). Since there are organizations working
specifically for population control, one would then support them rather than more orthodox methods of
preventing famine.

A third point raised by the conclusion reached earlier relates to the question of just how much we all ought
to be giving away. One possibility, which has already been mentioned, is that we ought to give until we
reach the level of marginal utility - that is, the level at which, by giving more, I would cause as much
suffering to myself or my dependents as I would relieve by my gift. This would mean, of course, that one
would reduce oneself to very near the material circumstances of a Bengali refugee. It will be recalled that
earlier I put forward both a strong and a moderate version of the principle of preventing bad occurrences.
The strong version, which required us to prevent bad things from happening unless in doing so we would be
sacrificing something of comparable moral significance, does seem to require reducing ourselves to the
level of marginal utility. I should also say that the strong version seems to me to be the correct one. I
proposed the more moderate version - that we should prevent bad occurrences unless, to do so, we had to
sacrifice something morally significant - only in order to show that, even on this surely undeniable
principle, a great change in our way of life is required. On the more moderate principle, it may not follow
that we ought to reduce ourselves to the level of marginal utility, for one might hold that to reduce oneself
and one's family to this level is to cause something significantly bad to happen. Whether this is so I shall not
discuss, since, as I have said, I can see no good reason for holding the moderate version of the principle
rather than the strong version. Even if we accepted the principle only in its moderate form, however, it
should be clear that we would have to give away enough to ensure that the consumer society, dependent as
it is on people spending on trivia rather than giving to famine relief, would slow down and perhaps
disappear entirely. There are several reasons why this would be desirable in itself. The value and necessity
of economic growth are now being questioned not only by conservationists, but by economists as well. [5]
There is no doubt, too, that the consumer society has had a distorting effect on the goals and purposes of
its members. Yet looking at the matter purely from the point of view of overseas aid, there must be a limit
to the extent to which we should deliberately slow down our economy; for it might be the case that if we
gave away, say, 40 percent of our Gross National Product, we would slow down the economy so much that
in absolute terms we would be giving less than if we gave 25 percent of the much larger GNP that we would
have if we limited our contribution to this smaller percentage.

I mention this only as an indication of the sort of factor that one would have to take into account in working
out an ideal. Since Western societies generally consider 1 percent of the GNP an acceptable level for
overseas aid, the matter is entirely academic. Nor does it affect the question of how much an individual
should give in a society in which very few are giving substantial amounts.
 
It is sometimes said, though less often now than it used to be, that philosophers have no special role to play
in public affairs, since most public issues depend primarily on an assessment of facts. On questions of fact,
it is said, philosophers as such have no special expertise, and so it has been possible to engage in philosophy
without committing oneself to any position on major public issues. No doubt there are some issues of social
policy and foreign policy about which it can truly be said that a really expert assessment of the facts is
required before taking sides or acting, but the issue of famine is surely not one of these. The facts about
the existence of suffering are beyond dispute. Nor, I think, is it disputed that we can do something about it,
either through orthodox methods of famine relief or through population control or both. This is therefore an
issue on which philosophers are competent to take a position. The issue is one which faces everyone who
has more money than he needs to support himself and his dependents, or who is in a position to take some
sort of political action. These categories must include practically every teacher and student of philosophy in
the universities of the Western world. If philosophy is to deal with matters that are relevant to both
teachers and students, this is an issue that philosophers should discuss.

Discussion, though, is not enough. What is the point of relating philosophy to public (and personal) affairs if
we do not take our conclusions seriously? In this instance, taking our conclusion seriously means acting upon
it. The philosopher will not find it any easier than anyone else to alter his attitudes and way of life to the
extent that, if I am right, is involved in doing everything that we ought to be doing. At the very least,
though, one can make a start. The philosopher who does so will have to sacrifice some of the benefits of
the consumer society, but he can find compensation in the satisfaction of a way of life in which theory and
practice, if not yet in harmony, are at least coming together.

Postscript
The crisis in Bangladesh that spurred me to write the above article is now of historical interest only, but the
world food crisis is, if anything, still more serious. The huge grain reserves that were then held by the
United States have vanished. Increased oil prices have made both fertilizer and energy more expensive in
developing countries, and have made it difficult for them to produce more food. At the same time, their
population has continued to grow. Fortunately, as I write now, there is no major famine anywhere in the
world; but poor people are still starving in several countries, and malnutrition remains very widespread.
The need for assistance is, therefore, just as great as when I first wrote, and we can be sure that without it
there will, again, be major famines.

The contrast between poverty and affluence that I wrote about is also as great as it was then. True, the
affluent nations have experienced a recession, and are perhaps not as prosperous as they were in 1971. But
the poorer nations have suffered as least as much from the recession, in reduced government aid (because
if governments decide to reduce expenditure, they regard foreign aid as one of the expendable items,
ahead of, for instance, defense or public construction projects) and in increased prices for goods and
materials they need to buy. In any case, compared with the difference between the affluent nations and
the poor nations, the whole recession was trifling; the poorest in the affluent nations remained
incomparably better off than the poorest in the poor nations.

So the case for aid, on both a personal and a governmental level, remains as great now as it was in 1971,
and I would not wish to change the basic argument that I put forward then.

There are, however, some matters of emphasis that I might put differently if I were to rewrite the article,
and the most important of these concerns the population problem. I still think that, as I wrote then, the
view that famine relief merely postpones starvation unless something is done to check population growth is
not an argument against aid, it is only an argument against the type of aid that should be given. Those who
hold this view have the same obligation to give to prevent starvation as those who do not; the difference is
that they regard assisting population control schemes as a more effective way of preventing starvation in
the long run. I would now, however, have given greater space to the discussion of the population problem;
for I now think that there is a serious case for saying that if a country refuses to take any steps to slow the
rate of its population growth, we should not give it aid. This is, of course, a very drastic step to take, and
the choice it represents is a horrible choice to have to make; but if, after a dispassionate analysis of all the
available information, we come to the conclusion that without population control we will not, in the long
run, be able to prevent famine or other catastrophes, then it may be more humane in the long run to aid
those countries that are prepared to take strong measures to reduce population growth, and to use our aid
policy as a means of pressuring other countries to take similar steps.

It may be objected that such a policy involves an attempt to coerce a sovereign nation. But since we are
not under an obligation to give aid unless that aid is likely to be effective in reducing starvation or
malnutrition, we are not under an obligation to give aid to countries that make no effort to reduce a rate of
population growth that will lead to catastrophe. Since we do not force any nation to accept our aid, simply
making it clear that we will not give aid where it is not going to be effective cannot properly be regarded as
a form of coercion.

I should also make it clear that the kind of aid that will slow population growth is not just assistance with
the setting up of facilities for dispensing contraceptives and performing sterilizations. It is also necessary to
create the conditions under which people do not wish to have so many children. This will involve, among
other things, providing greater economic security for people, particularly in their old age, so that they do
not need the security of a large family to provide for them. Thus, the requirements of aid designed to
reduce population growth and aid designed to eliminate starvation are by no means separate; they overlap,
and the latter will often be a means to the former. The obligation of the affluent is, I believe, to do both.
Fortunately, there are now many people in the foreign aid field, including those in the private agencies,
who are aware of this.

One other matter that I should now put forward slightly differently is that my argument does, of course,
apply to assistance with development, particularly agricultural development, as well as to direct famine
relief. Indeed, I think the former is usually the better long-term investment. Although this was my view
when I wrote the article, the fact that I started from a famine situation, where the need was for immediate
food, has led some readers to suppose that the argument is only about giving food and not about other
types of aid. This is quite mistaken, and my view is that the aid should be of whatever type is most
effective.

On a more philosophical level, there has been some discussion of the original article which has been helpful
in clarifying the issues and pointing to the areas in which more work on the argument is needed. In
particular, as John Arthur has shown in "Rights and the Duty to Bring Aid" (included in this volume),
something more needs to be said about the notion of "moral significance." The problem is that to give an
account of this notion involves nothing less than a full-fledged ethical theory; and while I am myself
inclined toward a utilitarian view, it was my aim in writing "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" to produce an
argument which would appeal not only to utilitarians, but also to anyone who accepted the initial premises
of the argument, which seemed to me likely to have a very wide acceptance. So I tried to get around the
need to produce a complete ethical theory by allowing my readers to fill in their own version - within limits
- of what is morally significant, and then see what the moral consequences are. This tactic works
reasonably well with those who are prepared to agree that such matters as being fashionably dressed are
not really of moral significance; but Arthur is right to say that people could take the opposite view without
being obviously irrational. Hence, I do not accept Arthur's claim that the weak principle implies little or no
duty of benevolence, for it will imply a significant duty of benevolence for those who admit, as I think most
nonphilosophers and even off-guard philosophers will admit, that they spend considerable sums on items
that by their own standards are of no moral significance. But I do agree that the weak principle is
nonetheless too weak, because it makes it too easy for the duty of benevolence to be avoided.
On the other hand, I think the strong principle will stand, whether the notion of moral significance is
developed along utilitarian lines, or once again left to the individual reader's own sincere judgment. In
either case, I would argue against Arthur's view that we are morally entitled to give greater weight to our
own interests and purposes simply because they are our own. This view seems to me contrary to the idea,
now widely shared by moral philosophers, that some element of impartiality or universalizability is inherent
in the very notion of a moral judgment. (For a discussion of the different formulations of this idea, and an
indication of the extent to which they are in agreement, see R. M. Hare, "Rules of War and Moral
Reasoning," Philosophy & Public Affairs vol. 1, no. 2, 1972.) Granted, in normal circumstances, it may be
better for everyone if we recognize that each of us will be primarily responsible for running our own lives
and only secondarily responsible for others. This, however, is not a moral ultimate, but a secondary
principle that derives from consideration of how a society may best order its affairs, given the limits of
altruism in human beings. Such secondary principles are, I think, swept aside by the extreme evil of people
starving to death.

Notes
1. There was also a third possibility: that India would go to war to enable the refugees to return to their
lands. Since I wrote this paper, India has taken this way out. The situation is no longer that described
above, but this does not affect my argument, as the next paragraph indicates.

2. In view of the special sense philosophers often give to the term, I should say that I use "obligation" simply
as the abstract noun derived from "ought," so that "I have an obligation to" means no more, and no less,
than "I ought to." This usage is in accordance with the definition of "ought" given by the Shorter Oxford
English Dictionary: "the general verb to express duty or obligation." I do not think any issue of substance
hangs on the way the term is used; sentences in which I use "obligation" could all be rewritten, although
somewhat clumsily, as sentences in which a clause containing "ought" replaces the term "obligation."

3. J. O. Urmson, "Saints and Heroes," in Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed. Abraham I. Melden (Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 1958), p. 214. For a related but significantly different view see also Henry
Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. (London: Dover Press, 1907), pp. 220-1, 492-3.

4. Summa Theologica, II-II, Question 66, Article 7, in Aquinas, Selected Political Writings, ed. A. P.
d'Entrèves, trans. J. G. Dawson (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1948), p. 171.

5. See, for instance, John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967);
and E. J. Mishan, The Costs of Economic Growth (New York: Praeger, 1967).