Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence

Peter Unger makes a detailed and compelling case for regarding widespread suffering in developing countries as equivalent to suffering in one's own neighborhood. After reading this book, there are few reasons left for sitting on one's hands in the face of this suffering. Other readers claim that the book's arguments rest on poorly supported utilitarian premises. Although Dr. Unger does work from a utilitarian frame of reference, I believe the logic of his arguements stand alone and the same conclusions could be reached using a different ethical framework. It is common for ethicists to construct elaborate theories that explain why the conventional wisdom and practices of society are morally correct. Dr. Unger's contrarian view is both controversial and important. I can imagine that some readers will find the position taken in this book difficult to accept because it makes us question the morally upstanding life that most of us assume we are living. Although this book is intended for the academic philosopher, it deserves to be read by a much larger audience.

If a child is drowning in a shallow pool, and you are nearby in a crowd of unresponsive adults, then you ought to wade in and rescue the child. As there is nothing to distinguish your obligations from that of others in the crowd, it follows that each person in the crowd ought to wade in and rescue the child. But it does not follow from this that EVERYONE ought to wade in and rescue the child. As soon as some people in the crowd show signs of response, the situation changes and each can re-evaluate the situation. Similarly, Unger's conclusion that EACH well-to-do person ought to surrender the bulk of his wealth does not entail that ALL well-to-do persons ought to surrender the bulk of their wealth. Unger's argument allows for the possibility that somewhere along the way it would be counter-productive to transfer wealth (for any number of reasons). What's at stake is the here and now, when the child's drowning and nobody's budging.

Contrary to a couple of previous reviews posted here, both favorable and unfavorable, Unger neither argues for nor presupposes Utilitarianism or consequentialism. Nor does he need to. It is true that his conclusions bear a superficial similarity to utilitarianism in being quite demanding, but he argues this on the basis of fairly fundamental intuitions that nearly all of us accept already. His strategy is such that ANY moral theory (whether deontological, consequentialist or other) must take a stance on which aspects of the hypotheticals he presents are morally relevant. If we are to avoid such implausible conclusions as that physical proximity or salience of others' needs are morally relevant factors, I think we cannot avoid his primary conclusion that nearly all of us act wrongly by not giving much more to certain charities than we currently do.Anyone who knows enough about this book to have read this far ought to read and grapple with the arguments presented in this book. Some of the more radical positions he defends may in the end turn out to be wrong but I think they certainly cannot be dismissed out of hand. This book will prove to be valuable to anyone concerned with doing the right thing as well as to intellectuals interested in the place of moral intuitions in moral inquiry (and as Unger points out, the dangers of relying too heavily on certain of those intuitions).

An INCREDIBLE book!! This book powerfully reveals the humor, the conflicts, and irony, but most of all the enormous POSSIBILITY inherent in the way we apply our values! Never having read any book like this before, my eyes were opened wide by the "Puzzles" in this book. These Puzzles are amazing scenarios of life and death situations, and are all about giving us the fuel to BREAK down mental blocks and barriers that stand in the way of us carrying out our values. This book opens us up to our true POTENTIAL as human beings. It spurs us to re-examine what we do everyday, and helps us make simple, beneficial changes. In the wake of September 11th, this book is a perfect fit for people looking to reinforce HOPE and responsibility for our fellow human beings. ----An incredibly beautiful vision of our futures-not the distant future, but our TOMORROW, our days-after-tomorrow, and ONWARD.----This book is indispensible for Americans of all beliefs and backgrounds-it speaks universally!

Unger's book revolves around whether our moral intuitions about our conduct are acceptable, and whether they can stand up to scrutiny - the conclusion is both convincing and disturbing - they cannot be. Specifically, Unger argues that we ought to do a lot more than we do to help starving people in the third world.Unger's method of reaching his conclusion is by challenging such commonplace opinions such as the idea that our physical proximity to someone suffering makes a difference to our obligations; and asking whether it matters that we're not the only ones placed to help, whether it matters that the problem is so big that we can only make a small difference, and so on.Convincing arguments show that none of this matters - we can make a difference, without sacrificing anything very important, and we ought to do so. Our intuitions to the contrary are mistaken. Unger's conclusion is therefore that each of us should adopt a Utilitarian outlook, where the needs of the many may well make important demands on ourselves.