The Influence Of Ethical Responsibility For Refugees
Today we have the largest amount of displaced persons worldwide, including more than the mass exodus after World War 2. Internationally countries are struggling to get to grips with their legal responsibilities to these refugees and asylum seekers, as well as their moral obligations.Do we have a moral and ethical responsibility to complete strangers, to people from the other side of the world, seeking asylum, seeking help? Do the benefits of helping refugees fleeing persecution outweigh the costs? What are these costs? The costs to security, the threat of “swarms” (Davi Cameron, 2015) of people causing strain upon public resources? What are our ethical expectations of ourselves in responding to this global people movement issue. 65.3 million
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A philosopher from the Cosmopolitan school of thought, Peter Singer, in his essay on “Famine, affluence and morality” (1972) highlights our responsibility to something he coins “global village”, in that he believes that we have the same responsibility to out own children as to the children starving in Burma. With global communications and such an internationalised community he sees a diminishment of national borders, much as other philosophers and theorists, such as Karl Marx, had begun to commentate on the effects of globalisation. He sets up a thought experiment that preposes that 2 children are drowning, one is your own child, and the other is one you have never known on the other side of the world, which child do you decide to save? Posing big ethical and moral questions about out obligations and responsibilities to giving aid and support to refugees and impoverished people, he suggests that location of people in need in our current globalised world is irrelevant. The age old political scapegoat saying “Charity begins at home” is rendered powerless to the fear mongers, in actually defining and understanding what the proverb means. Interestingly, while the proverb today is something used to deter public support for foreign aid funding, the original proverb was meant to be interpreted somewhat differently. The oldest recording of the proverb is in the King James Version of the New Testament, the original written in greek uses the greek word ‘agape’ which can be interpreted to mean charity, is most literally interpreted as meaning ‘love’ and ‘benevolence’ meaning kind intentions and denoting a hope that is non discriminatory, and borderless in its capabilities. So really the proverb should be used in the context to promote foreign aid funding and the acceptance of refugees, and not to impose restrictions on how many or to whom our “charity” may
A philosopher from the Cosmopolitan school of thought, Peter Singer, in his essay on “Famine, affluence and morality” (1972) highlights our responsibility to something he coins “global village”, in that he believes that we have the same responsibility to out own children as to the children starving in Burma. With global communications and such an internationalised community he sees a diminishment of national borders, much as other philosophers and theorists, such as Karl Marx, had begun to commentate on the effects of globalisation. He sets up a thought experiment that preposes that 2 children are drowning, one is your own child, and the other is one you have never known on the other side of the world, which child do you decide to save? Posing big ethical and moral questions about out obligations and responsibilities to giving aid and support to refugees and impoverished people, he suggests that location of people in need in our current globalised world is irrelevant. The age old political scapegoat saying “Charity begins at home” is rendered powerless to the fear mongers, in actually defining and understanding what the proverb means. Interestingly, while the proverb today is something used to deter public support for foreign aid funding, the original proverb was meant to be interpreted somewhat differently. The oldest recording of the proverb is in the King James Version of the New Testament, the original written in greek uses the greek word ‘agape’ which can be interpreted to mean charity, is most literally interpreted as meaning ‘love’ and ‘benevolence’ meaning kind intentions and denoting a hope that is non discriminatory, and borderless in its capabilities. So really the proverb should be used in the context to promote foreign aid funding and the acceptance of refugees, and not to impose restrictions on how many or to whom our “charity” may