Reference no: EM132388006
1. Is my moral obligation to others the same regardless of their geographical distance from me? If so, then doesn't that mean that I have overwhelming moral obligations (to potentially millions of people worldwide)?
2. Could our moral obligations be instead relative to such factors as geographical proximity (e.g., such that we have a greater moral responsibility to help those in need in our neighbourhoods than we do on the other side of the world)?
3. Do those in need have a rightto be helped? If so, does it follow that our moral obligations to others cannot be influenced by such factors as geographical proximity?
4. Describe Judith Jarvis Thomson's ‘violinist' case. Is the person in this case who is hooked-up to the violinist under a moral obligation to help him out? Or would it merely be morally good of them (though not morally required) to do so?
5. What are the intended implications of the violinist case for the debate about abortion? In particular, why does this case purport to show that the question of whether the foetus is a person doesn't determine whether abortion is morally permissible?
6. What implications might the violinist case have for our moral obligations to others more generally?
7. In what way are most pregnancies disanalogous to the violinist case? How might this disanalogy weaken Thomson's argument?
8. Are there also disanalogies between the violinist case and our relationship to the global poor? For example, are we responsible for there being global poverty in a way that the protagonist in the violinist case is not responsible for being hooked-up to a violinist?
9. Consider the proposal that we are morally obligated to help everyone in need only so long as we can do so in a way that isn't onerous. Is this proposal defensible? If not, why not?
10. What is utilitarianism? Why might the utilitarian hold that we are always morally obligated to help others in need so long as the cost to us in doing so is not greater than the good we thereby bring about? What problems might such a proposal face?
11. What is self-determination? Do we have a right to selfdetermination? How might the idea that self-determination has a special value enable us to limit, in a principled way, the demands made upon us by morality? Is this limitation principled?
12. What is the distinction between positive and negative responsibility? How can we recast the debate about the demandingness of morality in terms of the limits of negative responsibility?
Attachment:- Part B-Original Post.rar