Keith Horton

The Epistemic Problem: Potential Solutions

Those of us who live in developed countries frequently receive appeals for funds and other forms of support from aid agencies such as Oxfam, World Vision, and CARE.1 How should we respond to such appeals? Should we give to such agencies? Presumably, the answer to this question depends on how good or bad the effects of their work are.2 If those effects are as positive as the fundraising literature of such agencies tends to suggest, then there would be a very strong case for saying that we should give to them. If such agencies do less good, and more harm, than they like to imply though, the case for giving to them would presumably be weaker. And if the effects of their work were bad enough, that case might break down altogether.

The Limits Of Human Nature

It has become increasingly common recently to construe human natureas setting some pretty stringent limits to moral endeavour. Many consequentialists, in particular, take considerations concerning human nature to defeat certain demanding norms that would otherwise follow from their theory.One argument is that certain commitments ground psychological incapacitiesthat prevent us from doing what would maximize the good. Another is that we would be likely to suffer some kind of psychological demoralization if we tried to become significantly more selfless. I argue that influential versions of both of these arguments underestimate our deliberative resources, and also fail to examine the kind of moral sources that may be able to sustain rigorous moral endeavour. Pessimism about our capacities for such endeavour results from the neglect of these factors, rather than from uncovering any significant limitations in human nature.

Global ethics: increasing our positive impact

Global ethics is no ordinary subject. It includes some of the most urgent and momentous issues the world faces, such as extreme poverty and climate change. Given this, any adequate review of that subject should, I suggest, ask some questions about the relation between what those working in that subject do and the real-world phenomena that are the object of their study. The main question I focus on in this essay is this: should academics and others working in the field of global ethics take new measures aimed at having more real-world positive impact on the phenomena they study? Should they take new measures, that is, aimed at bringing about more improvements in those phenomena, improvements such as reductions in extreme poverty and in emissions of greenhouse gases? I defend a positive answer to this question against some objections, and also discuss some of the kinds of measure we might take in an attempt to have more positive impact.