Hi Obw: The example you give of the starving people at my doorstep does force the argument to its logical conclusions. I would still maintain however that conspicuousness is not, in and of itself, a reason for action.
However, I would claim that if let us say, death or some kind of harm was immanent for one of those people, then it would be my duty to take action. But the conspicuousness is only coincidental if by conspicuous you mean an element of ‘publicity,’ in the more generic sense of that word.
Conspicuousness is not ‘the’ reason. Rather, the reason is the immediate needs of the recipient and his/her practical (and moral) relationship to the agent. That relationship. If the one person dies your doorstep and you could have prevented it, then you are in my opinion partly, and I stress partly, responsible. The trompe d’oeuil here is that conspicuousness converges with the reason but it is not the actual reason. It’s the needs of the recipients in relation to the fact that they are now within your field of practical agency. But that doesn’t mean that conspicuousness is by itslelf the reason. The reaso has more to do with one’s practical ability to alleviate the situation in combination with one’s moral culpability ‘for’ the situation. If they come to my doorstep and I am seriously incapacitated, then the conspicuousness of the situation does not obligate me to act on their behalf. My own practical limitations and needs come into play here. Add to that the fact that I am not morally responsible for the onset of their circumstances.
So again, it s not the conspicuousness itself, it’s the requirements of the recipient and your responsibility to the recipient. If they’re on your doorstep, you’re not the one responsible for their predicament.
Besides, if they are on your doorstep, they should be conspicuous to others as well, including government. If they walk by everyone else in your neighbourhood but your neighbours simply decide to avoid gazing at them and turn away, then the starving people are now less conspicuous to them. Is it that easy to avoid moral responsibility?
Therefore I want to also stress that the fact that they made it to your doorstep does not negate the moral responsibility of institutions such government to help alleviate their situation. The prior duty here belongs to government. That’s not a cop out, what I mean is that government is a ‘proxy’ for ‘all of us’ and truly, that is where the moral responsibility lies. It is not your moral duty to save all those people. That’s an undue and excessive moral weight upon any one individual. I would only add that yes, in many, perhaps most situations, conspicuousness will be a coincidental feature of an agent’s moral responsibility to the recipient. But if I happen to father a child during my stay here in China, then just because I return home to Canada does not remove my moral responsibilities to the child.
The fact that the circumstances of child and mother are no longer conspicuous to me does not negate my duties to them. Conspicuousness then, is circumstancial and not substantial to the reason
I must admit that what makes your example difficult is the ability in these modern times of mass and instant communication, to make a distant event conspicuous even if we have no direct connection to such an event. That capacity, to bring such things to our doosteps or to our computer screens by a simple keystroke, does complicate the morality a little. What I would do is back it up a step and ask: Does the party making that request, whether they be Oxfam or people at your door, have a right to add so much moral responsibility to any one individual, per your example? My answer would be no, they don’t. They have a right to make the request but reciprocally, you should have the right to refuse. That reciprocity of right-to-right is I believe, an important aspect. Their right to make the request does not imply an automatic duty on your part.
But in the end, conspicuousness is not ‘the’ normative feature. It may be present but only coincidentally.
Cheers, MRJ