Home / M. Wild animals, new minds and the future / Part DIR
"We didn't cause it, so we have no duty to help"
the difference between causing harm and failing to prevent it may carry some moral weight, but it doesn't erase the duty to help when helping is possible and costs little. No one would accept this reasoning about a drowning child or flood victims. The feeling that omission is innocent is a known bias, omission bias, and it weighs more heavily when the victims are animals.
Short answer
No one threw the child into the pond, and yet everyone thinks whoever can save it without great risk should save it. Not having caused suffering doesn't release us from helping when we can. And for the victim, it makes no difference whether the harm came from someone or from nature.
For children
If you saw a kitten stuck in a drain, you weren't the one who put it there. Even so, you'd want to call someone to get it out, wouldn't you? Not having caused the problem doesn't mean we can't help. Sometimes helping is the most important thing.
"If you saw a child drowning and could save them without risk, would you say it isn't your duty because you weren't the one who pushed them in?"
Como pode aparecer
"Nature's problems aren't my problem."
"We have a duty not to harm, not to help."
"Veganism is not exploiting; the rest isn't our business." (which leads to M8)
"Negative duties are strict; positive duties are imperfect."
"I don't kill; I just eat." (which is K7)
The strongest version
"I didn't do anything to these animals. If they suffer in nature, it's not my problem."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1We have a strong duty not to cause harm to others.
- P2The duty to help those who suffer from causes we didn't create is, at most, weak and optional.
- P3The suffering of wild animals wasn't caused by us.
- CSo we have no duty to help them.
P1 and P3 are acceptable. P2 has serious defenders in philosophy, under the name of the doing/allowing distinction. The problem is drawing from it the conclusion that there's no duty at all.
The argument is valid, but P2, in its strong form, doesn't survive the human cases we all accept.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument depends on turning a difference of degree into an all-or-nothing difference:
Position What it says Consequence Doing and allowing weigh the same Failing to save is as serious as killing Enormous duties to help Doing weighs more than allowing Causing harm is worse than failing to prevent it, but failing still counts Real duties to help, proportional to cost and benefit Allowing weighs nothing There's only a duty not to cause No one would need to save the child in the pond The argument needs the third position, which almost no one accepts when the victim is human.
- b
Where the argument breaks
1. The child in the pond.
Peter Singer proposed in 1972: if you can save a child drowning in a shallow pond at the cost of muddying your clothes, you should save it. Almost everyone agrees, and no one caused the drowning.
2. Omission seems lighter than it is.
Psychology experiments show that people judge harm caused by omission as less serious than the same harm caused by action, even when outcome and intention are equal. This is omission bias. It explains the feeling of innocence, but doesn't justify it.
3. The human test.
Faced with a flood, an earthquake or an epidemic, we accept that governments, organizations and individuals should help, even though they didn't cause the disaster. No one says helping victims is optional because the rain is to blame. If we deny this reasoning to animals, the victims' species is doing the deciding.
4. Even defenders of the distinction accept helping.
Those who hold that duties not to harm are stronger usually accept there are reasons to help when the cost is small and the benefit large. The scale of suffering in nature makes those reasons strong.
5. Helping doesn't require heroism.
The duty to help can start with the simplest things: not opposing those who help, supporting research, and arguing that the wellbeing of wild animals be considered in decisions we already make.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note Spranca, Minsk and Baron, 1991 Harms by omission are judged less serious than equivalent harms by action Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27(1) Ritov and Baron, 1990 Parents prefer not to vaccinate even when the risk of omission is greater than that of the vaccine Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 3(4) Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" (1972) The drowning child: if we can prevent something very bad without sacrificing anything comparable, we ought to Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1(3) *A Journey Through Animal Ethics*, vol. VII, ch. 5 Even those who accept only strong duties not to harm usually admit reasons to help disaster victims Basis for points 3 and 4 - d
The strongest counter-reply: the duty to help has no limit
The most serious version says: if failing to help counts, we'd be guilty of all the suffering we could have prevented in the world, human and animal. Such a morality would be impossible to fulfil. The doing/allowing distinction exists precisely to give our obligations a reasonable limit.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
A limit isn't zero.
It's reasonable for the duty to help to have cost limits. That doesn't lead to the conclusion that there's no duty at all.
We apply reasonable limits to humans.
We don't require each person to give everything they have, but we expect them to help when it's easy. The same standard, applied to animals, already asks far more than we do today.
The first step costs almost nothing.
Taking the problem seriously, supporting research and not obstructing those who help are well within any reasonable limit.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
False dilemma
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Omission bias
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Double standard
Focus on the agent
Biases
Intention bias
Harm only seems serious when someone meant to cause it
Tomasik, "Intention-based moral reactions distort intuitions about wild animals"
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "we only have obligations regarding suffering we caused".
If it applied to…A drowning childTap to see
There'd be no duty to save them
Almost no one accepts this
If it applied to…Disaster victimsTap to see
Humanitarian aid would be merely optional charity
Many countries treat it as a duty
If it applied to…A person collapsed in the streetTap to see
Walking past would be morally neutral
In several countries, failing to assist is even a crime
Contradictions
Without having caused the drowning.
Without having caused the disaster.
Which already admits a duty to help animals one didn't harm.
What the argument gets right
What is true
It's right that causing harm is usually worse than failing to prevent it, and that our duties to help need reasonable limits. It's also right that, for exploited animals, the first duty is to stop harming them.
But
But "worse" doesn't mean "the only one". When we can relieve enormous suffering at no great cost, not having been the cause isn't an answer, for humans or for animals.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after
Go deeper in Questão de Ética
Chapters from the open-access collection A Journey Through Animal Ethics that discuss this argument in more detail:
- Foundations of the Proposal to Help Victims of Natural… Vol. VII, ch. 5
- Are We Morally Responsible Only for Human Practices? Vol. VII, ch. 21
- The View That It Is Not a Problem Because the Victims Are… Vol. VII, ch. 4
References
Philosophy
- Famine, affluence, and morality. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1(3).
Psychology
- Omission and commission in judgment and choice. *Journal of Experimental Social Psychology*, 27(1).
- Reluctance to vaccinate: omission bias and ambiguity. *Journal of Behavioral Decision Making*, 3(4).
- The moral standing of animals. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, 116(6).