The Rules of Rescue

Reviews / Votes

Having a special appeal and value for readers with an interest in the philosophy underpinning ethics, philanthropy, charity, and morality, The Rules of Rescue: Cost, Distance, and Effective Altruism is a seminal, thought provoking work which is unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and academic library Contemporary Philosophy collections. * Midwest Book Review * Many believe that we are under a duty to rescue someone in need; many also believe that, if we have to choose between helping one person in need and helping two such persons, we must save the greater number. Those seemingly obvious claims belie a huge range of knotty problems. Pummer's wonderfully well-written book carefully takes readers through increasingly complex cases, and shows that, even from a non-consequentialist perspective, we are under fairly demanding duties to help others-be it by giving money to charities, or by volunteering our time and energy. This book is a major contribution to the literature on the ethics of rescue. * Cecile Fabre, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Oxford * This book is filled to the brim with subtle and original ideas. One of the most important involves the interplay of "requiring reasons" and "permitting reasons" over time: while constant opportunities to help give us constant requiring reasons, we aren't constantly required to help. Pummer compellingly shows how this is so-and how beneficence is an imperfect duty-given the way permitting reasons operate over a lifetime. The Rules of Rescue is a must read for those working on the duty to rescue or the duty of beneficence. * Douglas W. Portmore, Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State University * The Rules of Rescue is admirably clear, elegantly written, and packed with highly original arguments. Time and again Pummer defends novel and surprising conclusions from careful consideration of relatively simple cases. Many people accept, for example, that we have broad discretion about what charities to give to, especially when the amount we give exceeds what we are morally required to give. Pummer shows, however, that this view is actually very hard to defend, and carries many counterintuitive implications. This book is required reading for anyone interested in the ethics of assistance and normative ethics more generally. * Christian Barry, Professor of Philosophy, Australian National University * Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty; general readers. * Choice * I highly recommend it to people interested in the status of effective altruism, the nature of deontology, * Peter Murphy, Ethics *