Many morally significant outcomes can be brought about only if several individuals contribute to them. However, individual contributions to collective outcomes often fail to have morally significant effects on their own. Some have concluded from this that it is permissible to do nothing. What I call ‘the problem of insignificant hands’ is the challenge of determining whether and when people are obligated to contribute. For this to be the case, I argue, the prospect of helping to bring about the outcome has to be good enough. Furthermore, the individual must be in a position to increase the probability of its being brought about to an appropriate extent. Finally, I argue that when too few are willing to contribute, people may have a duty to increase their number. Thus, someone can be obligated to contribute or to get others to contribute. This prospect account is consistent with Kantianism, contractualism and rule consequentialism but inconsistent with act consequentialism.

许多具有道德意义的结果只有在有几个人为这些结果做出贡献的情况下才能产生。然而，个人对集体结果的贡献通常不会对自身产生道德上的重大影响。一些人由此得出结论，什么都不做是允许的。我所说的“无足轻重的手问题”是确定人们是否有义务以及何时有义务做出贡献的挑战。为此，我认为，帮助实现结果的前景必须足够好。此外，个人必须能够将其发生的可能性增加到适当的程度。最后，我认为当愿意贡献的人太少时，人们可能有责任增加他们的人数。因此，某人可能有义务做出贡献或让其他人做出贡献。