Puzzles in Philanthropy

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My research attempts to identify and answer three puzzles in philanthropy. The first concerns the odd claim that, insituations in which aiding is supererogatory, it's preferable not to aid than to aid sub-optimally. Current solutions areunappealing insofar as they imply that no aid is truly supererogatory, and it requires all giving, not just obligatory giving,to be optimific (Horton, 2017: 95) or that whether we've already incurred the cost of aiding determines whether we canpermissible aid sub-optimally (McMahan, 2018). The second puzzle concerns the fact that cost-effectiveness seems toimply that we ought to refrain from aiding - for now. We must wait until interventions become cheaper for our use ofcurrent resources to become cost-effective (Moller, 2016). Given that doing so will likely save more lives, a defence ofthe permissibility of aiding now must show that we can permissibly attach less value to the lives of future people. I willattempt to sketch an account of this which is consistent with our common principles of beneficence. The third concerns adilemma inspired by the humanitarian crisis in Rwanda. This dilemma occurs when aid-workers, in providing necessaryaid, enable the wrongful agency of others. There are many factors under which this can occur, for example whether thewrong-doing was required for the distribution of aid or if the wrongdoing pre-existed. I will attempt to isolate these factorsto provide various models of this problem.