who is my neighbour? 2 world hunger, disease and other challenges faced by developing countries...

Who is My Neighbour? 2

World Hunger, Disease and Other Challenges Faced by Developing Countries

David Carpenter

23rd September 2015

Portsmouth Cathedral

16 September 2015 Who is my neighbour 1? The so-called migrant problem.

23 September 2015 Who is my neighbour 2?World hunger, disease and other challenges faced by developing countries.

30 September 2015 The perfect person1. The moral landscape of new reproductive technologies

7 October 2015 The perfect person 2. Worthwhileness of life in the face of progressive disease and disability. Euthanasia- including assisted suicide.

14 October 2015 Law and order; crime and punishment. How can the scales of justice be balanced morally?

21 October 2015 Open session. It is likely that participants will identify further topics – this session will be devoted to some of these.

World Hunger795 million people – or one in nine people in the world – do not have enough to eat.

98% of the world’s undernourished people live in developing countries.

Where is hunger the worst?Asia: 525.6 millionSub-Saharan Africa: 214 millionLatin America and the Caribbean: 37 million

Women and Children60 percent of the world’s hungry are women.

50 percent of pregnant women in developing countries lack proper maternal care, resulting in 240,000 maternal deaths annually from childbirth.

1 out of 6 infants are born with a low birth weight in developing countries.Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – 3.1 million children each year. That is 8,500 children per day.

A third of all childhood death in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by hunger.66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.

Every 10 seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases.

HIV/AIDS and other Diseases35 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.

52 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS are women.

88 percent of all children and 60 percent of all women living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa.

6.9 million children died in 2011 each year – 19,000 a day- mostly from preventable health issues such as malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia.

Launched in 2003, The Hunger Project’s HIV/AIDS and Gender Inequality Campaign works at the grassroots level to provide education about preventative and treatment measures.

The Position

• We are relatively rich• We could give and save lives / reduce or

prevent suffering• Do we have any moral obligation to do so?• If so, what is the nature of that obligation?• Might there be an obligation not to help?

Malthusian Population Theory

• Populations grow faster than food supplies• Famine, warfare, disease etc – natural

phenomena to counter the problem• We should not interfere with nature• If we do so we will make things worse

Population grows exponentially, for example, 1-2-4-8-16-32-64.Food supply grows arithmetically, for example, 1-2-3-4-5-6.Therefore, population will inevitably exceed food supply.

http://www.s-cool.co.uk/a-level/geography/population/revise-it/population-models

He then went on two say that there are two possible outcomes.Firstly, he said population could exceed food supply only to be positively "checked" (reduced) by famine, war, and disease.

Alternatively, the population could pre-empt the food shortages and so slow their population growth keeping it within the limits of the food supply. Malthus called these negative checks. These negative checks would include later marriages and abstinence from sex (Remember Malthus was writing before wide spread contraception!). People would make these decisions sub-consciously as food prices increased and standard of living fell.

“The harsh ethics of the lifeboat become even harsher when we consider the reproductive differences between the rich nations and the poor nations. The people inside the lifeboats are doubling in numbers every 87 years; those swimming around outside are doubling, on the average, every 35 years, more than twice as fast as the rich. And since the world's resources are

dwindling, the difference in prosperity between the rich and the poor can only increase.

As of 1973, the U.S. had a population of 210 million people, who were increasing by 0.8 percent per year. Outside our lifeboat, let us imagine another 210 million people (say the combined populations of Colombia,

Ecuador, Venezuela, Morocco, Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines) who are increasing at a rate of 3.3 percent per year. Put differently, the doubling time for this aggregate population is 21 years, compared to 87 years for the

U.S. The harsh ethics of the lifeboat become harsher when we consider the

reproductive differences between rich and poor. http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_against_helping_poor.html

Hardin’s lifeboat ethics

Population growth is inevitable

Moral Arguments – Not to help

We have a positive obligation not to feed the starving

It only prolongs suffering

Caused by nature – land cannot sustain the people

We ought to do nothing at all!

A crude utilitarian analysis

Stability – low birth rates parallel low death rates

Demographic Transition Theory

High birth rate, high death rate – still steady population growth

Death rate declines, birth rate stays high – high population growth

Birth rate declines more than death rate – slow population growth

No obligation at all – purely optional

Possible Obligations

Positive obligation to help

Positive obligation not to help

Negative obligation to help

A duty to do x

A duty not to do y

Charity

A duty not to do x

Really an issue of prioritisation – whether we should give and to which causes

Charity

Distinction between being charitable and to whom we should be charitable

Kantian perspective of imperfect duty

No individual to whom a duty is owed

Cannot force charity eg through taxation

Social Justice - Globally

John Rawls 1921 - 2002

1. Each person to enjoy maximum liberty compatible with all enjoying similar systems

2. Social and economic inequalities should be arranged so that they are

a) To the greatest benefit of the least advantaged

b) Attached to offices and positions open to all

This is what Rawls calls the

difference principle

This means equality of opportunity

Combined effect is to maximise the position of the least well off – ‘maximin’

Combined effect is to maximise the position of the least well off – ‘maximin’

Robert Nozick1938 - 2002

Distribution of Goods

• Goods are not ‘up for grabs’• Holdings have a history which confers

entitlements• Holdings come into the world already

owned• Redistribution can occur with consent• Taxation is slavery

Communitarian Ethics

• Compassion

• Love

• Solidarity

• Humanity

In any event we would have to counter the ‘not help’ argument

Moral Arguments –to help

Must assist – utilitarian position Must assist – people have a right to food

Problem of rights with no correlative duties

But these are largely empirical issues – what of the moral?

Wider Perspectives

Starvation is not simply a natural phenomenon – nor caused by natural events alone

Social, political and economic factors

The lives of the starving are dependant on the actions of others

The issue is not typically the availability of food, it’s the entitlement to it

We can act – we should act

What obligations do we have?

? Coerce the relevant national government

Set up trade relations

Are we obliged to ensure that they have adequate food entitlements

Global economics

A strong obligation to assist

The vulnerable eg children – cannot help their plight

Dependency

It can be achieved (earlier argument countered) – so we are in the territory of simple collective and individual responsibilities

Duty to rectify injustice

Distant suffering assumes we are not responsible for the situation – we are – this supports negative duties to assist – and ‘ordinary’ positive duties

We caused the plight

The arguments in favour

Discussion

• Portsmouth – Calais• Christian Perspectives – Christian Aid• Economic realities• Disease, drugs, drug development

La Follette, H. World Hunger In: Frey, R.G. and Wellman, C. A Companion to Applied Ethics (2003). Oxford: Blackwell