Barry and Øverland on Singer and assistance-based duties

Abstract

Barry and Øverland reject Singer’s assistance principle as being too demanding and offer a positive defence of a less demanding one. In this article, I critically scrutinize their arguments. My main claim is that they fail to show that their own principle of assistance is superior to more demanding ones such as Singer’s.

Keywords

• Appeal to costs
• duties of assistance
• moral equality
• moral options
• poverty
• Singer