The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy

Abstract

The Ethics of Assistance: Morality and the Distant Needy, Deen Chatterjee, ed., Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Public Policy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. xi, 292.Many, indeed most, of the contributors to this volume address aspects of one or other of two rather different discourses that are prominent within the contemporary literature on international humanitarian assistance. The first is the basis for, and extent of, our individual, personal obligations towards those with whom we have no connection but who are suffering grievously. The second is the obligation that richer countries have towards much poorer countries.