background information
Currently Haiti encountered an immense earthquake that left many people on the island homeless, and over 100.000 thousands people dead. Neither does Haiti have an appropriate infrastructure nor the resources to handle such a destructive event. Therefore, being prepared for such a catastrophe is hardly possible. At the moment many charities are supporting this country with food, medicine and other first aid supplies.
But is it a moral obligation or an optional conduct, why people feel motivated to help others who are in need? To what extent is the international community obligated to donate first aid supplies to Haitians?
From a moral standpoint, if one of the foreign nations has the resources to help, they should do so, since the Haitians cannot prevent the disaster from happening. Moreover no one can prevent such a catastrophe. Nowadays such an event can occur in every country and someone should take responsibility to help out in such desperate times.
Since we are living in a free society, everyone has to decide for him or herself, e.g. which amount to spend in such a situation. However it remains a moral obligation for the governments of other nations to support the weaker ones. There should not be given an option to help or not, since a life is at stake and you should not be indifferent if people are dying. Furthermore, if you take a look at Haiti’s history, you will learn that it was a country which was colonized (first by the Spanish, then the French, then in 1915 till 1956 it was occupied by the US for safety reasons). A country that is overshadowed by a history of cruelty and slavery, a country still struggling to recover from foreign power, is a weak nation that deserves the help from the international community. For that reason, when it comes to saving lives, the moral obligation overrides the morally optional (or our free will). The action here which is undertaken from different countries is therefore obligatory, since if someone is in need of help, the person who is able to provide this aid, should take action.
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4 comments:
I agree that it is morally obligated to help saving lives, but it is impossible doing this, even for governments. There are so many countries where humans are dying and who could be saved by giving them food, water or medicines. The government has not enough resources to help every person/country in need and has to make decisions whether to help a country or not.
In the case of Haiti the governments are indirectly obligated to send resources to Haiti. Imagine if the Netherlands would not send help to Haiti, how would the rest of world react knowing this? I support the idea of supporting the weaker countries, but with all the money collected for Haiti, more humans could have been saved in other countries.
Nice article, but I do not think the question is: if we need to help but why and when do we help. Why do Western Societies only help when a natural disaster has occurred and have taken many lives and a country in ruin?
It seems to me Western Societies act out of a Roman Catholic tradition. As a Catholic you can confess all your sins and after saying your prayers with a priest you have cleaned your soul and you will be in the graces of the lord again. As Western Society and citizens of these societies we cleaned our soul by donating tremendous amounts of money. (Does it really help?)
Do not get me wrong, people in need have to be taken care of, like in the past when a knight defended people in need. Still, we forget one thing; Haiti is and always has been one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
So my point is, why did not Western Societies offered help sooner and what was the urge of people all over world to donate so much money at this particular point in time and do not even speak about cancelling all debt Haiti has.
With natural disaster like Haiti and the Tsunami in 04, people themselves can clean their soul without going to a church and make their confessions. In fact they tell others about the good deed they have performed and ask others if they already donated and of course how much. Is this really about helping Haitians or ourselves?
To conclude; yes it is our moral duty to help people, but does this duty only start when something really goes wrong, like a natural disaster. Yes, extra help needs to be offered to these extreme circumstances but as Western Society and people living in it, we have failed. We failed and neglected our moral duty to help because in the case of Haiti, it did not start with the earthquake, it started much sooner.
In my opinion whether you have the moral obligation or option to help really depends which moral perspective you as a person have. Since we are talking about the positive duty ‘to help people in need’ the conclusion of these 2 perspectives will diverge. From a functional perspective which maintains the concept of minimum morality the decision to help should be considered optional. Yet a hermeneutic would consider this duty obligatory.
I think that this duty should be obligatory because I do not agree with the functional perspective that human beings are purely self-interested. In reality our world fits the hermeneutic perspective more where people are complex beings are not indifferent to each other’s suffering. As already mentioned in previous comment Western society is still influenced by some core Christian values and one of them is: treat others as you would want to be treated yourself. From a hermeneutic perspective this positive duty should be considered morally obligatory.
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In my opinion it is morally obligated for Western Societies to help Haitians to recover from the earthquake. Morality has positive duty, such as “to help people”. It is a positive duty for other countries to help saving lives and support Haiti with medical aid, food and other resources since the government of Haiti has not enough resources. However, Western Societies cannot only take this positive duty (to help Haiti) for this earthquake, but also for other poor countries. Why people only want to help after the earthquake but not before it? Things are always noticed after it occurs. As we know that Haiti is one of the poorest countries without an appropriate infrastructure, it is also a morally obligation to help Haiti to built an appropriate infrastructure before the earthquake.
In conclusion, it is morally duty for other nations to help people in Haiti as sooner as better.
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