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What Is Morally Right?
Analytical ethics using the example of development aid
A thought experiment:
Imagine standing in front of a hospital tent in an African village. Before you is a young woman, pregnant, malnourished, without access to clean water or medical care. Until recently, she was looked after by a Western aid program – funded by a government organization called USAID. But this program was discontinued. For political reasons. For principles. For lack of money.
Was that the right decision?
What analytical ethics does – and what it doesn’t
Ethics is the philosophical discipline that deals with the question: What should we do?
Analytical ethics attempts to answer this question as clearly, logically, and comprehensibly as possible – without moral panic, without pathos, without religious dogmas. Instead, it works with arguments, concepts, scenarios, and critical counterexamples.[1]
It’s the opposite of gut-feeling philosophy.
The USAID case: When aid suddenly ends
In the wake of political upheavals – such as under the Trump administration – the American development aid agency USAID was drastically reduced or completely shut…
