Cohen agrees with Singer on two points:
Singer thinks these points, taken together, lead to the conclusion that it is our duty to give famine aid until we are in or near poverty ourselves. This is where Cohen disagrees. He maintains that it is possible to fail to prevent deaths without letting anyone die. That means it is possible to fail to give to famine aid, knowing that giving would save lives, without violating the duty not to let people die.
That sounds paradoxical. Isn’t failing to do what you could to save someone’s life the same thing as letting that person die? Cohen claims that this is not so in a special kind of case: those who have done their fair share to prevent deaths are not responsible for any deaths that come about because others have not done their share. The slackers are the ones who let the people die; the people who did their parts did not let anyone die despite the fact that they could have prevented the deaths.
Here’s another way to look at it. Singer’s principle asserts two things:
Cohen largely accepts the first part of Singer’s argument but he has a very different understanding of the second part. He thinks your duties end when you have done your share to prevent suffering and death.
Cohen gives three arguments that I labelled the perverse incentives argument, the argument from the general conception of responsibility, and the fairness argument.
Simon and Zane introduced the perverse incentives argument. The idea is that if Singer’s principle were true, each of us would know that the others are bound to do all they can to alleviate famine and poverty. Given that, I might slack off myself because I would know that someone else would make up for my failure to act and no one would suffer as a result. So a very demanding moral principle perversely encourages inaction.
Chris said that Singer would say that, at most, this shows that it would be bad if people knew that Singer’s principle is true. It doesn’t show that Singer’s principle is not, in fact, true. (We will talk more about this when we discuss Glover’s essay.) Jacob said that he didn’t even think that the assumptions about human behavior that the perverse incentives argument relies on are true. Roughly, we’re supposed to imagine people who are highly concerned about alleviating famine but completely indifferent to treating others fairly. Jacob thinks that’s unlikely to be so.
The argument from the general conception of responsibility turns on the assertion that “letting” is not a transitive relationship. For instance, the engineer lets the helmsman steer the ship and the helmsman lets the ship go off course but it does not follow that the engineer lets the ship go off course. The helmsman did. Similarly, if it’s my job to save this group of people, you let me do my job, and I let those people die, it doesn’t follow that you let them die, according to Cohen,
Emma wasn’t convinced by the story of the helmsman and the engineer. Derick pointed out that you can be responsible for making up for others, like replacing the toilet paper roll even if you aren’t the one who used it up.
The argument from fairness is similar to the one about responsibility. It maintains that it’s unfair to hold people responsible for doing more than their share. That seems right, but, at the same time, we sometimes do that. That’s the lesson of the two kids in the fountain. If I run away without saving my kid, you have to do more than your share. That’s unfair, but you can’t really refuse.
Cohen agrees. He thinks we should not stick to what he calls the “clear cut” rule that you are only responsible for doing your share. His point is that we should start with our shares and allow responsibilities to ratchet up from there. That is very different from Singer’s position that we should start with the responsibility to do whatever it costs to prevent suffering and death, even if that means spending ourselves into poverty. But, as Zoë pointed out, once you concede that some departures from the clear cut rule are justified, it’s hard to see where you stop short of Singer’s position.
We only discussed the third section of Cohen’s essay (pp. 72-81). The previous sections run through arguments very much like those that Singer made. They’re worth reading, but we did not discuss them.
Here is how I see the third part breaking down.
Here are three terms that are important for his essay but may not be familiar to you.
Ceteris paribus means ‘other things being the same.’ In context, on page 75, what he’s saying is that his argument assumes that those who do their share are in the same moral position as those who don’t: no one has an acceptable excuse for not doing his share, and so on.
Supererogatory means ‘beyond the call of duty.’ In context, on page 75, what he’s saying is that it might be a good thing if some did more than their fair share but that no one is morally required to do so.
Begging the question means ‘giving an argument that simply assumes one’s opponent is wrong rather than proving it.’ In context, on pp 77-8, what he’s saying is that Singer, for example, could claim that Cohen’s orphanage example simply assumes that Singer is wrong. More precisely, Singer could object that Cohen is relying on provoking a reaction to this example, namely, that there is a limit to the number of starving children one must feed short of reducing oneself to starvation levels, that simply assumes all of Singer’s arguments are ineffective. Needless to say, that’s not a persuasive way to refute Singer’s arguments.
Be aware that “begs the question” is often used in common speech to mean “raises a question.” It’s not that this usage is wrong: words mean what people use them to mean. It’s just different.