Again, this boils down to the toughest ethical question of all - Am I my brother's keeper?
What obligation DOES anyone in the entire world owe to another?
Do I (I speak now as a taxpayer funding the NHS and the Benefits system) pay for this woman's health care and housing? And if so, why this particular woman?
Should I not preferably give to someone in even direr straits?
How does a human being establish a 'hierarchy of need' (who's straits are direr in escalating order?)
Do I pay for this woman simply because she is 'in front of my eyes' (ie, through that article), rather than someone suffering 'worse' but 'out of sight' (ie, still in another country)?
I genuinely don't know the answer, and I doubt many folk do - because unless one takes the 'extreme sibling' POV - ie, that not a single human being in the world has ANY right to withhold funds of any amount from anyone whose strait is direr than their own - (hands up who is for that one, except Mother Teresa?)(who actually did it!).
Hoiw 'dire' do MY straits have to be before I 'don't have' to pay for someone else? Or is it simply down to the same level - if I have threepence and someone else only tuppance do I give my 'spare' (excess) penny to the person with only one?
And that is even BEFORE we come on to the issue of 'deserving' straits.....but let's leave that one out. Let's not think of those who smoke themselves to lung cancer and then expect expensive operations etc etc (ie, the 'contributory negligence' issue)(it applies to my late husband by the way - he cost the NHS money because of his smoking-related cancer)(though he also saved the NHS money for years as he had a very health lifestyle once he gave up excessive smoking in his twenties - does that balance out the 'deservingness' etc etc?)
These really are intractable moral issues, and at the very least (ie, taking out the 'contributory negligence' to the direness of one's straits), would genuinely require a true, full on Communist Society (or a Commonwealth of Saints which is probably the same thing but with 'added God'!).
So, Am I My Brother's Keeper?
Which equates to 'What right have I to more than I need for subsistence and survival, if there are others who lack even that?
What obligation DOES anyone in the entire world owe to another?
Do I (I speak now as a taxpayer funding the NHS and the Benefits system) pay for this woman's health care and housing? And if so, why this particular woman?
Should I not preferably give to someone in even direr straits?
How does a human being establish a 'hierarchy of need' (who's straits are direr in escalating order?)
Do I pay for this woman simply because she is 'in front of my eyes' (ie, through that article), rather than someone suffering 'worse' but 'out of sight' (ie, still in another country)?
I genuinely don't know the answer, and I doubt many folk do - because unless one takes the 'extreme sibling' POV - ie, that not a single human being in the world has ANY right to withhold funds of any amount from anyone whose strait is direr than their own - (hands up who is for that one, except Mother Teresa?)(who actually did it!).
Hoiw 'dire' do MY straits have to be before I 'don't have' to pay for someone else? Or is it simply down to the same level - if I have threepence and someone else only tuppance do I give my 'spare' (excess) penny to the person with only one?
And that is even BEFORE we come on to the issue of 'deserving' straits.....but let's leave that one out. Let's not think of those who smoke themselves to lung cancer and then expect expensive operations etc etc (ie, the 'contributory negligence' issue)(it applies to my late husband by the way - he cost the NHS money because of his smoking-related cancer)(though he also saved the NHS money for years as he had a very health lifestyle once he gave up excessive smoking in his twenties - does that balance out the 'deservingness' etc etc?)
These really are intractable moral issues, and at the very least (ie, taking out the 'contributory negligence' to the direness of one's straits), would genuinely require a true, full on Communist Society (or a Commonwealth of Saints which is probably the same thing but with 'added God'!).
So, Am I My Brother's Keeper?
Which equates to 'What right have I to more than I need for subsistence and survival, if there are others who lack even that?