Failures are sometimes, but not always, causally relevant to events. For instance, the failure of the sprinkler was causally relevant to the house fire. However, the failure of the dam upstream to break (thus inundating the house with water) was not. Similarly, failures to prevent harms are sometimes, but not always, morally wrong. For instance, failing to save a nearby drowning child is morally wrong. Yet, you are also in some sense ‘allowing’ someone on another continent to drown right now, and this seems permissible. Here, I argue that these two issues are connected. Roughly, I argue that it is prima facie morally wrong to fail to prevent a particular harm if and only if one’s omission is causally relevant to that harm’s occurrence. The result is that, contrary to what Peter Singer claims, failing to donate to famine relief is not morally equivalent to failing to rescue a drowning child in a shallow pond. 1. A dilemma for omissions Intuitively, failures are sometimes causally relevant to events. Consider: Faulty Sprinkler Some oily rags are piled near some exposed wire. The rags catch fire. A nearby sprinkler system, designed to activate under extreme heat, malfunctions and fails to put out the fire. The fire consumes the building. However, sometimes failures ‘allow’ events to occur in ways that do not seem to be causally relevant. Consider: Unbroken Dam Some oily rags are piled near some exposed wire. The rags catch fire. Ten miles upstream there is a dam which, if it breaks, will release a flood of water that will inundate the building where the fire is occurring, putting the fire out. The dam fails to break, and the fire consumes the building. While both the failure of the sprinkler system and the failure of the dam to break in some sense ‘allowed’ the fire to occur, intuitively, we would only cite the failure in the first case (Faulty Sprinkler) as causally relevant to the event of the fire. Thus, we have a causal dilemma: If failures are never causally relevant, then we obtain the counterintuitive result that the failure of the sprinkler system is not causally relevant to the event of the fire. On the other hand, if failures are always causally relevant, then we obtain the counterintuitive result that the failure of the † Department of Philosophy, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA; Email: cvance@wm.edu dialectica Vol. 72, N° 1 (2018), pp. 25–47 DOI: 10.1111/1746-8361.12211 © 2018 The Author dialectica © 2018 Editorial Board of dialectica bs_bs_banner dialectica

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因果关系、允许的遗漏和饥荒救济

失败有时（但并非总是）与事件有因果关系。例如，洒水装置的故障与房屋火灾有因果关系。然而，上游的大坝未能破裂（从而使房屋被水淹没）并非如此。同样，未能防止伤害有时（但并非总是）在道德上是错误的。例如，未能拯救附近溺水的孩子在道德上是错误的。然而，从某种意义上说，你现在也在“允许”另一个大陆上的人淹死，这似乎是允许的。在这里，我认为这两个问题是相互关联的。粗略地说，我认为，当且仅当一个人的疏忽与该伤害的发生有因果关系时，未能防止特定伤害在道德上是错误的。结果是，与彼得辛格声称的相反，未能为饥荒救济捐款在道德上并不等同于未能在浅水池中救出溺水的儿童。1. 遗漏的困境 直觉上，失败有时与事件有因果关系。考虑： 有故障的洒水器 一些油性抹布堆在一些暴露的电线附近。破布着火了。附近的自动喷水灭火系统设计用于在极端高温下启动，但出现故障并且无法扑灭火灾。火烧毁了建筑物。然而，有时失败“允许”事件以似乎没有因果关系的方式发生。考虑： 完整的大坝 一些油性抹布堆在一些裸露的电线附近。破布着火了。上游十英里有一个大坝，如果它破裂，会释放出大量的水，淹没发生火灾的建筑物，从而将火扑灭。大坝没破，火烧毁了建筑物。虽然喷水灭火系统的故障和大坝的故障在某种意义上都“允许”了火灾的发生，但直觉上，我们只会引用第一种情况（喷水器故障）的故障与以下事件的因果关系火。因此，我们有一个因果困境：如果故障从不具有因果关系，那么我们会得到一个违反直觉的结果，即喷水灭火系统的故障与火灾事件没有因果关系。另一方面，如果失败总是因果相关的，那么我们会得到一个违反直觉的结果，即美国弗吉尼亚州威廉斯堡威廉与玛丽学院 † 哲学系的失败；电子邮件：cvance@wm.edu 辩证卷。72, N° 1 (2018), pp. 25–47 DOI：10.1111 / 1746-8361。