Comments Elsewhere

Richard,

I don’t think that consequentialists have “a broader conception of their moral mission” than people who urge the objection I suggested in (ii). There’s nothing in such a position that would rule out trying to maximize the net global quantity of some good (pleasure, happiness, virtue, human flourishing, whatever). If you believe that philanthropy is a virtue (as I do) then that’s one of the things that is included in the “personal demands of ethics” that I mentioned. What it does do is subject your philanthropic projects to certain boundary conditions: whatever good you try to effect in the world has to be consistent with, yes, keeping your hands clean, as it were. So the point isn’t that you shouldn’t try to promote everybody’s well-being (however specified); it’s that you have to concern yourself with some other things, too, and so can’t set about doing it by any means necessary.

There’s a bunch of other stuff to say, but I have to run off to work shortly. Hopefully I’ll be able to come back to it later.