Asher Sisneros

Note: This paper was originally submitted to Dr. Lynn Cates at Thomas Edison State University on March 12, 2026 as an assignment for his PHI-2860: Contemporary Ethics class. It was then subsequently published here on Ashersisneros.com on October 13, 2026.

I

According to Jan Narveson, there are two ways to argue that people have a moral responsibility to prevent starvation. First, you can say that active and passive killing are basically the same thing because they both result in human death. But, in countering the first argument, Narveson points out that when you actively kill someone, you are the initiator of the change (from life to death). Meanwhile, when you let someone die, nothing changes, and fate continues its course. They were going to die unless you did something. You did nothing, and they died. In that scenario, you changed nothing. All of that to say, Narveson argues that there is clearly a logical difference between killing someone and letting them die because in one case you instigate the change, and in the other case you refuse to change anything (1993, p. 242). 

The second argument is that even though killing someone and letting them die are different, they are “morally equivalent” (Narveson 1993, p. 242) because they both have the same outcome. At its core, this is a utilitarian argument. It bases morality on the human flourishing that an action creates, i.e., its consequence, rather than from immutable moral principles. Returning to the argument itself, Jan Narveson points out that we can only be morally responsible for inaction if we already had a responsibility to take action (1993, p. 243). For example, imagine that a mother tells her 12-year-old son to clean his room before dinner. If dinner rolls around, and he still has not cleaned his room, she may punish him for his inaction. I use that example to emphasize Narveson’s point: sometimes, inaction is morally equivalent to action, but only if there was already a responsibility to take a certain action. 

The million-dollar question is whether we have a responsibility to feed the hungry. Although Narveson says it is a morally admirable thing to do, he also says it is not a responsibility. The problem, as he points out, is that even if you accept a utilitarian premise, there is no guarantee that feeding the poor will always create the most human flourishing. There is no guarantee that devoting your life to giving people emergency aid abroad will improve all of humanity because that assumption ignores the various and diverse “points of view,” as Narveson says, that fill this vast world (1993, p. 243). What is good for one person is not necessarily good for another. If one man quits his job, sells his house, and uses all of the funds in his 401(k) to feed the hungry, surely the hungry people are better off, but his boss is not, and neither is his family. When Narveson talks about different points of view, he is not saying that giving food to the hungry is bad. The world is complicated. He is just saying that it is an oversimplification to say that food aid abroad most certainly, absolutely, always improves the welfare of the world. 

II

All of that being said, Narveson does believe that it is sometimes your responsibility to feed the starving. If they are starving because of you, you absolutely have a moral duty to feed them. I think that a parent’s relationship with their child is a perfect example of this. As a parent, you have legal and moral responsibility for your child. You have a responsibility to take care of your child because they are not in a position to take care of themselves yet. If they do not have any food, you have to feed them. If they are starving, and you have food, the police should definitely kick open the door and arrest you. In that scenario, they are starving because of you. The “because of you” part is the center of Narveson’s criterion for whether you have a moral imperative to feed the starving. As he says, how “did he get that way? If it was not the result of my previous activities, then I have no obligation to him, and may help him out or not, as I choose” (1993, p. 244). 

Now, even when feeding the hungry may not be your responsibility, Narveson does think it is often a virtue. It really depends on how much it costs you and how much it helps the other person. This is what he says (Narveson 1993, p. 247): 

The tendency and desire to do good for others is a virtue. And it is a moral virtue, for we all have an interest in the general acquisition of this quality. … [A]nyone can benefit anyone else; and so long as the cost to oneself of participating in the general scheme of helpfulness is low—namely, decidedly less than the return—then it is worth it.

III

I think Narveson’s distinction between justice and charity makes a lot of sense. According to him, justice is owed; charity is given (Narveson 1993, p. 246-47). When the IRS demands that you pay your taxes, it is because you owe it to them. You may not owe them taxes, morally—I have no idea—but you certainly owe them, legally speaking. If you fail to pay your taxes, they can throw you in prison. But can your nephew throw you in prison if you do not get him a birthday present? No, he cannot. Birthday presents are a gift. Unlike taxes, they fall under the category of charity. 

Feeding starving people is a matter of justice when they are starving because of you. I have already used the example of a parent starving his or her children. To create another analogy, I will use a biblical story. In the Book of Judges, Samson captures a number of foxes, he attaches torches to their tails, and he releases them in the Philistines’ fields, destroying all of their crops. The story does not say whether anyone starved. But starving people aside, if we are applying Narveson’s justice-charity distinction, Samson would be morally responsible for compensating the Philistines for their destroyed property since it was destroyed because of him. I think the distinction is helpful, especially when it comes to restitution. 

IV

The extreme poverty-siding view says that you should view other peoples’ desires and welfare as just as valuable as your own, and you should pursue their welfare just as much, too (Narveson 1993, p. 244). Narveson calls this view the “ethics of the hair shirt,” and it is an outlook that he is not sympathetic towards. Mocking this outlook, he says, “Benefit others, at the expense of yourself—and keep doing it until you are as poor and miserable as those whose poverty and misery you are supposed to be relieving” (Narveson 1993, p. 245). 

He disagrees with the ethics of the hair shirt because he says it really just makes the better off “slaves” of the less off (Narveson 1993, p. 245), through the power of the welfare state. This has exactly the same problem as the wealthy plundering the poor through the state, with the only difference being that each group’s position has changed. 

One counterargument that a “hair shirt ethicist” could make is that valuing other people’s interests as much as your own on moral grounds is not the same thing as saying the state should take money from the wealthy and redistribute it to the poor like a modern-day Robin Hood. Not all moral issues should be enforced by the state. Plus, we are talking about the Golden Rule over here: treat others the way you would like to be treated. To say that caring about other people’s interests as much as your own is somehow saying that the rich should be slaves to the poor is ludicrous. The first premise does not lead to that conclusion. It just means that you should care about other people, and caring about other people is a moral issue. To me, it seems like a counterargument like that would be logically valid. 

V

The liberty proponent thinks that you cannot force someone to do something against their will. It has to be voluntary (Narveson 1993, p. 244). In response to the distinction between letting someone die and proactively starving them, the liberty proponent says that they cannot be forced to help someone who is already dying, involuntarily. Nobody can compel them to help anyone if they do not want to. 

According to the liberty proponent, morality is not a factor when there has been no wrong. He or she thinks that if someone is hurt, but you did not hurt them, morality is silent on how you should act. 

While I am sympathetic to the idea of nonintervention as it relates to the government compelling you to help certain people against your will, I do not think that you never have a responsibility to help someone, assuming you were not the person who harmed them in the first place. If someone is bleeding on the ground and, instead of calling 911, you just walk away, if they die, I think you have some moral responsibility for their death. Yes, they were going to die anyway. But I think that we all have a responsibility to be a good Samaritan under certain circumstances. 

Reference

Narveson, J. (1993). Feeding the hungry. In Russ Schafer-Landau (Ed.), The ethical life:  Fundamental readings in ethics and moral problems, 4th Ed, (pp. 239-250). Oxford University Press.