In Chapter 1, I frame the book. First, I identify the questions that motivate my book. For example, to whom do we have obligations? On what terms? And why? Second, I rehearse scriptural sources that may guide religious ethicists when thinking about our obligations to severely poor people. Third, given the various intradisciplinary debates in religious ethics about definitions and distinctions, I lead the reader through important definitions in contemporary normative and practical ethics, for example, doing and allowing, agent-neutrality and agent-relativity, and institutionalism and interpersonalism. And fourth, I comment on my methodology, highlighting my commitments to contractualist deontology and the use of thought experiments in ethics.

Exploring what he calls “the moral horror that is severe poverty,” Bharat Ranganathan develops a demanding account of the obligations that affluent people have to assist severely impoverished people. He argues that this is an immediate ethical as much as a social or structural imperative. Noting that developmental economists and moral and political philosophers have focused on wealth inequalities in increasingly sophisticated ways, Ranganathan observes that – within religious ethics – normative issues around severe poverty have nevertheless received insufficient attention. Bringing together general moral, religious, and philosophical principles with particular economic, social, and political realities, and engaging constructively with the writings of John Rawls and Peter Singer, this passionately argued book boldly challenges deleterious trends within ethics by unpacking, in a much more systematic way than hitherto, the pressing dilemmas around acute impoverishment. It will find an eager readership among scholars of religion, ethics, developmental studies, and theology.

In Chapter 2, I develop and defend an account of human rights as universalist and minimalist. First, I characterize rights as universal, protecting all people universally and absent any qualifying characteristic. Second, I argue that the human right to subsistence is a basic human right. I argue that without enjoying the substance of the human right to subsistence, we will neither be able to enjoy the substance of any other, non-basic right nor pursue any other ends, moral, or non-moral. And third, in response to critics who believe that the universality of human rights entails remaking the world in our image (i.e., maximalism), I develop a minimalist account of human rights. According to minimalism about human rights, human rights should enable us to live minimally decent and autonomous lives. On these terms, human rights aim to protect people from the worst rather than to promote the best.

In Chapter 3, I confront views offered by anti-cosmopolitan theorists. According to the first anti-cosmopolitan view, our obligations to guarantee the substance of the right to subsistence is owed primarily to our compatriots. These obligations outweigh our obligations to those beyond our borders. According to the second anti-cosmopolitan view, we don’t have any obligations beyond our own borders. On these views, our obligations to others are delimited by the particularities of our reciprocal relationship with our compatriots. In response, I draw from John Rawls to articulate an institutional conception of rights. On such a conception, our obligations toward others arise in particular contexts where we interact with and coerce one another vis-à-vis our participation in an institutional scheme. Because we are implicated in trans- and supranational economic, political, and social institutions, we interact institutionally with severely poor people. Employing such an argument serves as a defense against anti-cosmopolitan theorists.

In Chapter 4, I take up two problems. The first problem focuses on “noninstitutional” violations of people’s rights. The second problem focuses on affluent people’s positive obligations in the face of slow-moving institutional change. In response, I develop an account of negative and positive interpersonal obligations. I first argue that while we have a primary obligation to advance institutional justice, we also have interpersonal obligations that constrain our interpersonal behavior. If human rights norms don’t apply to interpersonal interactions, then a human rights theory won’t be able to account for noninstitutional violations. In response to the second problem, I draw from Peter Singer’s shallow pond example and the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). Building on these examples, I argue that affluent people have greater obligations to severely poor people than commonsense judgments suggest.

In Chapter 5, I confront the moral demandingness problem: Namely, the demandingness of our positive interpersonal obligations to severely poor people may require us to violate our moral integrity since we are always required to act in order to help others. I argue that we may fulfill our obligations to our severely poor neighbors and also exercise proper self-regard and regard toward our special relations. Thus, affluent people are morally obligated to help the severely poor. But affluent people are simultaneously obligated to violate neither our own moral status nor our own moral integrity. Therefore, we are permitted to form special relations and to pursue our personal projects, which are part of our rational life plans. Affluent people are morally obligated, however, to scrutinize the personal prerogatives we have taken up unchecked and to locate these self-regarding activities against the demands of aiding the severely poor.

Exploring what he calls “the moral horror that is severe poverty,” Bharat Ranganathan develops a demanding account of the obligations that affluent people have to assist severely impoverished people. He argues that this is an immediate ethical as much as a social or structural imperative. Noting that developmental economists and moral and political philosophers have focused on wealth inequalities in increasingly sophisticated ways, Ranganathan observes that – within religious ethics – normative issues around severe poverty have nevertheless received insufficient attention. Bringing together general moral, religious, and philosophical principles with particular economic, social, and political realities, and engaging constructively with the writings of John Rawls and Peter Singer, this passionately argued book boldly challenges deleterious trends within ethics by unpacking, in a much more systematic way than hitherto, the pressing dilemmas around acute impoverishment. It will find an eager readership among scholars of religion, ethics, developmental studies, and theology.