[The Bacon Guy]

Quote by: Pist No, I said that if a person can give, then they should give. If a person cannot give, then it's not necessarily the case that they should give.

There is no physical barrier preventing the affluent from giving, hence they can give. If it causes them more suffering than it alleviates, then, from your premises, they shouldn't give. Your conclusion that the affluent should be obligated to give most/all of their disposable income to the suffering, is in conflict with this and is therefore false.

Quote by: Pist In your hypothetical example, it seems to be beyond the point of marginal utility for that "rich" man (I have rich in quotations because it is dubious considering the qualms over giving a dollar) to give one dollar because he would get rapidly closer to the sufferers' state with each dollar given. In that case, the "rich" man cannot give, and is not obligated to give.

He most certainly can give. There is no physical barrier to him giving, and, from your premises, there is no moral barrier. For there to be a moral barrier, your premise must then change to "If we can prevent bad, then we should prevent bad, as long as it doesn't violate an arbitrary and subjective threshold of selfishness".

Hence, your seemingly objective argument of “he who can give should give”, becomes the subjective and redundant argument of “He who should give should give”.