Saving and Letting Live
Name
Philos Phenomenol Research - 2025 - Byrne - Saving and Letting Live.pdf
Size
375.2 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
d3e0aa3844dcb7ae0b35c8565098315b
Author(s)
Byrne, Thomas
Date Issued
July 31, 2025
Journal
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
Publisher
Wiley
Citation
Byrne, T. (2025) Saving and Letting Live. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1–20.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
There is a metaphysical difference between person Akilling person B and A merely letting B die. There isalso a metaphysical difference between A saving B andA merely letting B live. This paper argues that the meta-physical difference between saving and letting live givesrise to a moral difference. It then puts that moral differ-ence to work: for example, it accounts for the long-feltmoral difference between failing to rescue a drowningchild and failing to donate $4000 to Oxfam (sufficientfor them, in the aggregate, to prevent a child’s death).
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Philosophy
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.70030
