O’NEILL

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO GIVE UNTIL IT HURTS

Onara Sylvia O’Neill (born 1941)

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve

Ph. D. Harvard, John Rawls supervisor

8 books, includingFaces of Hunger: An

Essay on Poverty, Development and Justice (1986)

Kantian Assumptions

Re: Categorical Imperative

not Universal Law Formula, but

Kant’s Formula of End in Itself 686-7

“Always treat humanity never merely as means

but as an end in itself.”

Kantian Assumptions

Re: Maxims

Recall: rightness or wrongness of act determined by its maxim.

Maxim understood by O’Neill as: principle on which one acts

OR

one’s intention in acting

Kantian Assumptions

Re: Formula of Ends

1. People can be used as means, but not merely as means.

Examples: students use professor as means to a degree; professor uses students as means to salary, etc.

2. In deception or coercion people are used merely as means.

Kant: 2 Kinds of Duties

1. PERFECT DUTYDefined in terms of Universal Law

formula:

If maxim to do action A cannot be universalized without

contradiction or impossibility, then

not doing A is perfect duty.

Kant: 2 Kinds of Duties

2. IMPERFECT DUTYIf maxim to do A cannot be willed to

become universal law, then not doing A is imperfect duty.

Something cannot be willed if doing so requires will “to conflict with itself”.

Example: willing to ride bicycle without getting on it, to eat but not swallow…

Kant: Justice vs. Beneficence

1. Perfect duties must be fulfilled without exception at all times.

2. Imperfect duties are supererogatory: fulfilling them is good, but not strictly required.

1. Justice is a perfect duty.

2. Beneficence (charity) is an imperfect duty.

O’Neill on Beneficence

1. Justice demands we never treat another merely as a means.

2. Beneficence must be selective, since others’ goals are infinitely diverse.

“Kantians are not compelled to working interminably through a list of happiness-producing and misery-reducing acts.” 688

Famine, [War, Disease…]

JUSTICE requires:

1. No cheating if there is rationing scheme.

2. Do one’s best to fulfill duties to dependants.

3. Birth control or Economic development?

4. No coercion: “outward forms of negotiation, bargaining, and voluntary consent do not demonstrate there is no coercion.” 690

Famine, [War, Disease…]

BENEFICENCE requires:

Selectivity:

Developing someone’s abilities to pursue various ends is more important that helping them achieve particular ends.

Re: Ethical Theory

Kantianism enables us to figure out what to do even in the absence of the knowledge required by utilitarianism about the overall effects of our actions on others. 691-2