Some moral philosophers argue that spending some of your resources—without significantly affecting your financial stability—to help other people who badly suffer is our moral duty and not merely a matter of charity. Justify this claim by explaining the distinction between duty and charity.

Peter Singer’s principle of effective altruism argues that when we can prevent serious suffering without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, helping becomes a moral obligation, not mere generosity.

Duty versus Charity

Justifications for Helping as a Moral Duty

1. The Principle of Preventable Harm: If one can prevent absolute bad without sacrificing something of equal moral weight, inaction is unethical.
2. Corrective Justice: Extreme poverty often results from historically exploitative global systems, making resource transfer an act of restitution.
   1. Example: Developed nations paying climate funds to vulnerable islands as compensation for carbon emissions.
3. Restoring Human Dignity: Extreme deprivation destroys a person's ability to make rational choices; helping them survive is necessary to treat them as human beings.
4. The Principle of Trusteeship: Surplus wealth belongs to society; affluent individuals are merely custodians morally bound to use it for the marginalized.
   1. Example: Using corporate profits to fund rural drinking water projects as a social debt.
5. Capabilities Approach to Human Rights: Freedom from starvation is not a favor but a fundamental entitlement requiring a corresponding duty from those with surplus.
   1. Example: Transitioning from ad-hoc food charity to a legally binding Right to Food Act.
      
      

Limits to the duty

1. Duty is proportionate, not limitless; assistance should not threaten one’s basic needs or legitimate obligations.
2. It should preserve dignity and agency, avoiding paternalism or dependency.
   
   

A humane society should move from a “culture of charity” to a “culture of responsibility”, where compassion inspires generosity but justice determines what we owe to one another.