Toward a Better Future

Peter Singer has offered perhaps the most influential argument for increased aid and global redistribution, based on a duty of rescue. This chapter critically evaluates this argument by agreeing with Singer that there is a duty of rescue, but asserting that he is mistaken to say that it scales up to a highly demanding duty to aid poor people around the world. Singer’s argument ignores that there can be negative feedback loops between rescues. The history of aid shows that such attempts have largely been a failure, primarily because these negative feedback loops often exist. The chapter closes by arguing that the possibility of such feedback loops is itself a reason for accepting a more limited duty of rescue than Singer defends. A more limited duty is intuitive, and might actually work in practice.