tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1138643918628908102006-01-30T12:58:00.000-05:002006-01-30T12:58:00.000-05:00Well, perhaps it was just a matter of the way you formulated the Oxfam scenario; since it sounded to my ears like the problem was with diverting money from Oxfam rather than with diverting money from the starving.<BR/><BR/>I'm inclined to say there's no significant difference between the charity-reducing actions and deliberately starving someone at a certain level of abstraction. In real life there will be differences: there are other demands on our charity, for instance, that have to be factored into the equation, and there are obligations of justice to family members and community that have to be met prior to determining how much we can give. I also think it makes a difference how deeply involved we are with the problem and how effective our action will be (perhaps this is a difference between the indirectness of charity reduction and the indirectness of the window scenario?), and whether the inaction is deliberate, due to negligence, or due to ignorance. But if we idealized a bit I think they end up being pretty much the same. The idealization would just require three conditions:<BR/><BR/>(1) That the inaction be deliberate;<BR/>(2) That it be reasonably probable that our charitable gift would be put to good use and not lost in bureaucratic expenses or channeled into the pockets of oppressors (as charity to the third world often is);<BR/>(3) That we are not choosing between different ways of being charitable.<BR/><BR/>Under such conditions, which might not always be strictly true IRL (although it seems to me that they could be true 'for all practical purposes'), I think any difference vanishes. But then I tend to agree with the Thomistic view of these things: failure to use one's surplus funds to help others in some way is a violation of justice. There's some gray area about what counts as essential for human life and what counts as surplus, and the precise line is each person's to decide; but charity is not supererogatory.Brandonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.com