After reading Pogge and Risse articles several times I was left feeling a little confused due to my lack of understanding from some of the language that was used.(perhaps if they could find a way to dumb it down a little) So I was advised to go to (my new best friend) Wikipedia and find the meaning of some words that I did not understand like the use of "Benchmarks" and "Social institutions" to see if I could clear some of my misunderstandings. (It helped but not enough though) Here are some of the things that I agreed/disagreed with Pogge on:
1. As a person you have a much stronger moral reason to makes sure that you do not harm someone else out of your own negligence than you have to make sure that they are not harmed by causes outside of your control.
I agree with this because you can only control what actions that you have taken and you can only (well should be) held accountable for your own consequences not the actions and consequences of others. For example if someone is hungry and they need food I would with out a doubt supply the food because that is within my control. But, if you choose not to eat the food that is supplied before you I can do nothing because your own negligence is out of my control.
2. ..."One's moral reason to help prevent and mitigate others' medical conditions is stronger when these others are compatriots than when they are foreigners. I reject this belief in regard to medical conditions in whose incidence one is materially involved. "
I disagreed with this point because I would be inclined to help someone regardless of the fact of me having some type of commonality with the person that is in need whether I was materially involved or not. That is like say that I am only going to combat the spread of AIDS/HIV only in Americans because I am American and to boot any patient that is not of American decent with AIDS/HIV. Or I am only going to help a child that got hit by a car only because I was the driver.
As far as the economic institutions ( in regards to both Risse and Pogge) I would have to agree that it does play a major role in the level of poverty that one faces. However, it is not the only contributing factors: like ignorance, apathy, dishonesty, and dependency. And we have come a long way in terms of economic stand point but we need to take it a little bit fether than we have. I feel that if anyone are going to try and combat poverty and the components of poverty then you are going to have to attack it at many different angles in order to get the job done rather than just one angle. Meaning you just can not throw money at the problem and that the answer you have to supply other resources like education, a vital workforce, and healthcare in order to have given a solution.
So are we responsible for combating poverty and poverty based illness outside of our country?
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I agree with jamespointdexter in that you are only accountable for your own actions and consequences, and not anyone else's. I don't see how someone else's negligent actions can be your own responsibility, only if it's your own child doing the negligent act on someone else, then it becomes your responsibility. Other than that, we are all adults, which means we are responsible for our own actions.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't understand is when Pogge gives the example, suppose two children have been injured by speeding drivers and money is needed to pay for an expensive medical treatment to restore their health. Case 1: I am the driver and the child is a foreigner. Case 2: Someone else is the driver and the child is the compatriot. Since in case 1, I am the one that did the negligent act, it would be obvious that I would take care of the child that I did the act to, whether foreign or a compatriot. Case 2 is in someone else's hands.
I'm just not clear on why Pogge places emphasis on whether the person is foreign or not, and how it could have greater moral weight for us than compatriot's medical conditions, whose incidence we are not materially involved.
To answer your question, ilovelucy, I think Pogge was trying to make the point that commonalities often dictate involvement, but I do not wholly agree with this idea.
ReplyDeleteI was just listening to NPR on the radio days ago that mentioned that despite the state of the economy, Americans were still more likely to donate to a wide spectrum of causes than any other society in the world. Does that fact in anyway show consistency with Pogge's argument? I can't see the connection.
I agree with you and jamespoindexter (and seems all of the posts thus far) that Pogge's attempt to make that connection is unclear at best, and as mightyskunk points out seems to imply that Pogge suggests as a solution, a world based socialist system! I don't get it.
Risse's position to recognize progresses made to lessen the gap between the haves and have nots is a bit idealist, but I can at least appreciate where he's coming from...except when he mentions in his historical account how African Americans "were better off under Jim Crow vis-a-vis the antebellum days," than they are now. Ummm, how? According to what I've been taught, opportunities for advancement, recognition as full people, education, life expectancy and the like are surely better now than then. Can someone enlighten me here?
I think that Pogge is trying to recognize individual moral rsponsibility with giving a some fact that make us to understand in some situations.
ReplyDeleteexample one it is 100 % driver's responsibility to seek medical care for the child who got hit by him.
example two, If driver did not see the stop signon the school zone because it interfered to see stop sign by tree on the side just right before stop sign. in this case, traffic engineer has a high responsibility for this accident beside this careless driver.
Example three, If there are two people got hurt at same time and one of people who was forigner got seriously hurt, Pogge belives that I should be responsible seek to help them for medical care without any favoritism to their natioality.
Example senario,there were one incident that one factory worker had injured in factory in forign country which owned by the rich country(USA. Who is responsible for this worker's medical care? of course it is responsible by the president who owned for this factory for his medical treatment.
Example five, Pogge did not said that it is the United State; However, he was giving figurative $ amount that rich country giving some money away to poor countries for their health care, it is not much different amount of money rich country has.
It is common knowledge that people said, the population of the United States are only 10% in the whole world. our citezen are using all resources from wordwide about 60%. the rest of 90% of population in the world has to devide among the 40% of resources and by that lack of resources, people can be a sick easier due to lack of resources to keep their health.
Pogge is asking question on us rich country that is it morally responsible for the poor country to develop their social well being.