Steven Brown

Articles

Helping Givers Find Projects to Alleviate Poverty

I’ve been teaching ethics courses at The Ohio State University for years, walking students through controversial issues like abortion, the death...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuwzP_tEdMo

I’ve been teaching ethics courses at The Ohio State University for years, walking students through controversial issues like abortion, the death penalty, and drug legalization. However, extreme poverty has become a very difficult topic for me to present as a truly complex moral problem. Isn’t it just obvious that people shouldn’t be dying because they can’t get access to inexpensive life-saving medications? Isn’t it also obvious that if we can prevent those deaths by making small sacrifices and donating to charities that do effective, life-saving work on the ground, we should probably do that? What really is complex is moving from mere concern into informed action.

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