86:3 July 2003
Moral Distance 

Advisory Editor: Deen Chatterjee, University of Utah

The distance between one person and another can be assessed in a variety of ways. Persons can be physically, or geographically, distant. But they can also be affectively distant, for example when they are related to each other by no special ties of family or friendship or community. Intuitively, we have stronger moral obligations to those who are physically or affectively near than to those who are physically or affectively remote. Distance seems to set moral boundaries, and distant strangers seem to be of minimal moral concern.

In his "Famine, Affluence and Morality" of 1972, Peter Singer initiated the contemporary discussion of moral distance and moral boundaries by arguing that the interests of strangers, near or far, should count as much as those of friends and geographic neighbors. But if distance is irrelevant, does this not make morality excessively demanding or excessively impersonal? If, on the other hand, moral obligation does indeed vary with distance, does this not imply a callous indifference to many in need?

The present issue of The Monist is devoted to the question of how we are to gauge the moral significance of physical or affective distance. Are we to be guided solely by our moral intuitions? Can moral distance be measured? Are there, besides utilitarianism, also deontological or virtue theories which challenge the intuitive idea that obligation diminishes with distance? Does temporal distance raise moral concerns which are similar to those raised by physical and affective distance? Contributions are invited which seek answers to questions such as these in ways which will throw light on the concepts of moral distance and moral boundaries.

Table of Contents:

Deen K. Chatterjee 

Moral Distance: Introduction

Jeremy Waldron 

Who Is My Neighbor? - Humanity and Proximity

Wendy Hamblet 

The Geography of Goodness: Proximity's Dilemma

Soran Reader 

Distance, Relationship and Moral Obligation

Richard Arneson  

Consequentialism versus Special-Ties Partiality

Garrett Cullity 

Asking Too Much

Jan Narveson 

We Don't Owe Them a Thing

Kok-Chor Tan 

Patriotic Obligations

Catherine Wilson 

A Humean Argument for Benevolence to Strangers

Nicholas Rescher 

By the Standards of Their Day

Stephen M. Gardiner 

The Pure Intergenerational Problem

Karen Green 

Distance, Divided Responsibility and Universalizability