Now, Alice knew from conversations in hall that the philosophers at Cambridge were greatly concerned with the difference between killing and letting die. Some argued that there was no distinction: that if you knew the cause of death and failed to stop it even if you were able, then that was morally tantamount to murder. Others disagreed. Letting die might be morally callous, they argued, but it entailed refusing to get involved in a situation, not bringing it about. If letting die was so evil, were we responsible for not doing anything about world poverty? About orphans starving continents
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