Catropa / Children’s Attentional Skills. Steinberg / Less Guilty by Reason of Adolescence. The Emergence of Morality in Young Children. Haidt / MORAL JUDGMENT, AFFECT, AND CULTURE,OR, IS IT WRONG TO EAT YOUR DOG? Greene / The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflictand Control in Moral Judgment. Singer / Famine, Affluence, and Morality. As I write this, in November 1971, people are dying in East Bengal from lack of food, shelter, and medical care. The suffering and death that are occurring there now are not inevitable, not unavoidable in any fatalistic sense of the term. Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond the capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to very small proportions. The decisions and actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering.
Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions. These are the essential facts about the present situation in Bengal. What are the moral implications of a situation like this? In arguing for this conclusion I will not, of course, claim to be morally neutral. I begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad.