Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence
By contributing a few hundred dollars to a charity like UNICEF, a prosperous person can ensure that fewer poor children die, and that more will live reasonably long, worthwhile lives. Even when knowing this, however, most people send nothing, and almost all of the rest send little. What is the moral status of this behavior? To such common cases of letting die, our untutored response is that, while it is not very good, neither is the conduct wrong. What is the source of this lenient...
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By contributing a few hundred dollars to a charity like UNICEF, a prosperous person can ensure that fewer poor children die, and that more will live reasonably long, worthwhile lives. Even when knowing this, however, most people send nothing, and almost all of the rest send little. What is the moral status of this behavior? To such common cases of letting die, our untutored response is that, while it is not very good, neither is the conduct wrong. What is the source of this lenient assessment? In this contentious new book, one of our leading philosophers argues that our intuitions about ethical cases are generated not by basic moral values, but by certain distracting psychological dispositions that all too often prevent us from reacting in accord with our commitments. Through a detailed look at how these tendencies operate, Unger shows that, on the good morality that we already accept, the fatally unhelpful behavior is monstrously wrong. By uncovering the eminently sensible ethics that we've already embraced fully, and by confronting us with empirical facts and with easily followed instructions for lessening serious suffering appropriately and effectively, Unger's book points the way to a compassionate new moral philosophy.
1Illusions of Innocence: An Introduction32Living High and Letting Die: A Puzzle about Behavior Toward People in Great Need243Living High, Stealing and Letting Die: The Main Truth of Some Related Puzzles624Between Some Rocks and Some Hard Places: On Causing and Preventing Serious Loss845Between Some Harder Rocks and Rockier Hard Places: On Distortional Separating and Revelatory Grouping1196Living High and Letting Die Reconsidered: On the Costs of a Morally Decent Life1337Metaethics, Better Ethics: From Complex Semantics to Simple Decency158Bibliography177Index of Cases181Index of Persons183Index of Subjects185
