Under conventional legal and ethical principles, not providing someone with aid that may extend their life is not generally considered the same as killing them. Your personal ethical code may see it that way but you will find many people disagree with you (me included).
I agree. Anyway you also need to consider the “don’t feed stray animals” principle. Will saving lives in the Third World ultimately cause more suffering and misery?
I was a bit surprised to hear that Ethiopia’s population has doubled since the famine there in the 1980s. Where does it end?
I was a bit surprised to hear that Ethiopia’s population has doubled since the famine there in the 1980s. Where does it end?
Expected to double again by 2050.
I think it is a very fair point that by alleviating suffering today we may be compounding it in the future. A rebuttal might be that it is ‘merely’ a matter of doing the right thing today as well as in the future.
I see a couple problems with this: First, is it fair for us (meaning westerners) to leave a problem like this for our descendants to solve?
Second, it seems that these poor folks are growing in numbers much faster than our numbers are growing. So the burden of feeding them may end up getting worse and worse until it’s no longer possible.
I suppose it might be argued in response that if and when the Singularity comes, we will be able to address these other problems. Still, I’m not sure it’s fair to actually bet our descendants’ futures on this.
Does our “solving it” in the present lead to its exacerbation in the future? How will Ethiopians manage to control their population? Will our aid today directly cause 20 million people to starve in 2050?
On your points:
Is it us westerners’ or the Ethiopians’ problem to solve? I mean they’ve so far made it ~2.5 times worse than We are the world.
At some point their birth rate will either have to equal their death rate (+ immigration) or their starvation will not be solvable by anyone or anything short of a Singularity.
The way I see it, the primary responsibility is on Ethiopians. We may alleviate, but we cannot cure.
GDP per capita is a better predictor of fertility than access to contraceptives.
The rejection is only as flimsy as the contraceptive programs are effective, on the margins where increased funding might make a difference. They may not be very effective at all while additional children are still profitable.
“Socioeconomic development is considered the main cause of a decline over time in the benefits of having children and a rise in their costs.”
Well I agree that to the extent that the “aid” we are talking about is contraception, then my “don’t feed stray animals” objection clearly doesn’t apply.
Fair enough. I agree with mattnewport as well, though I’d say that ‘providing someone with aid that may extend their life’ is probably a moral obligation to some extent, in a reasonable extrapolation of my and your revealed values.
Under conventional legal and ethical principles, not providing someone with aid that may extend their life is not generally considered the same as killing them. Your personal ethical code may see it that way but you will find many people disagree with you (me included).
I agree. Anyway you also need to consider the “don’t feed stray animals” principle. Will saving lives in the Third World ultimately cause more suffering and misery?
I was a bit surprised to hear that Ethiopia’s population has doubled since the famine there in the 1980s. Where does it end?
Expected to double again by 2050.
I think it is a very fair point that by alleviating suffering today we may be compounding it in the future. A rebuttal might be that it is ‘merely’ a matter of doing the right thing today as well as in the future.
I see a couple problems with this: First, is it fair for us (meaning westerners) to leave a problem like this for our descendants to solve?
Second, it seems that these poor folks are growing in numbers much faster than our numbers are growing. So the burden of feeding them may end up getting worse and worse until it’s no longer possible.
I suppose it might be argued in response that if and when the Singularity comes, we will be able to address these other problems. Still, I’m not sure it’s fair to actually bet our descendants’ futures on this.
Does our “solving it” in the present lead to its exacerbation in the future? How will Ethiopians manage to control their population? Will our aid today directly cause 20 million people to starve in 2050?
On your points:
Is it us westerners’ or the Ethiopians’ problem to solve? I mean they’ve so far made it ~2.5 times worse than We are the world.
At some point their birth rate will either have to equal their death rate (+ immigration) or their starvation will not be solvable by anyone or anything short of a Singularity.
The way I see it, the primary responsibility is on Ethiopians. We may alleviate, but we cannot cure.
That’s a flimsy rejection, since Phil mentioned donating to programs that provide contraceptives in the Third World.
GDP per capita is a better predictor of fertility than access to contraceptives.
The rejection is only as flimsy as the contraceptive programs are effective, on the margins where increased funding might make a difference. They may not be very effective at all while additional children are still profitable.
“Socioeconomic development is considered the main cause of a decline over time in the benefits of having children and a rise in their costs.”
“http://www.jstor.org/pss/20058399″
Well I agree that to the extent that the “aid” we are talking about is contraception, then my “don’t feed stray animals” objection clearly doesn’t apply.
Fair enough. I agree with mattnewport as well, though I’d say that ‘providing someone with aid that may extend their life’ is probably a moral obligation to some extent, in a reasonable extrapolation of my and your revealed values.