Our moral obligations to disadvantaged children

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: We live in a time of unprecedented wealth and ease, taking airplanes to exotic locales and enjoyinga variety of foods from across the globe. Significant improvements in healthcare haveincreased life expectancy to three times that of Ancient Egypt, once considered the most advancedcivilization of its time. Yet despite these advances, millions of children continue to suffer.Ninety-nine percent of the millions of child deaths before the age of five each year are preventablethrough low cost treatments. Poor children who live past age five usually experience alifetime of intellectual, physical, and emotional setbacks because of their disadvantaged circumstances.What, if anything, is to be done?This dissertation argues we have strong moral obligations to help children by providing a substantiveequality of opportunity so that any differences in socioeconomic or life circumstanceresult from individual choice, not poor moral luck. These obligations are grounded in the commonmorality, arise from cosmopolitan applications of beneficence, and include the provision ofnutritious food, safe drinking water, adequate sanitation, shelter, certain levels of healthcare andeducation, and love and guidance. Although the task before us is large, it is not impossible andthus incumbent upon us to fulfill it.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University