Insofar as Carens disagrees with my views, readers can weigh up the arguments and decide for themselves. Still, it may be useful to flag briefly the points where I believe he misreads my chapter. I care little who is at fault for these misunderstandings. My concern is just to get my views across and to avoid appearing as a stereotypical philosopher – dictatorial, dogmatic, perfectionist, uncompromising, and blind to the rich nuances and complexities of the real world. There are four points, in particular, that I want to set straight.

First, Carens objects that, as shown by my frequent use of hypothetical examples, I start “from philosophers' puzzles rather than from the concerns of INGOs.” But my entire essay grew out of my reaction to Rieky Stuart's presentation at our first conference in New York. Stuart said then that some of the hardest choices she has had to face in her work for Oxfam had been about abandoning a project when it becomes apparent that it does more harm than good. (One example she gave involved food supplies being captured by armed groups and then being sold for weapons.) I responded that surely even a project that does more good than harm should be abandoned when a lot more net good can be achieved with the same resources elsewhere. This response provoked all but universal condemnation from the INGO representatives, which, in turn, with the debate that followed, inspired me to write the chapter under discussion.