Contributing towards health provision in severely disrupted environments - some ethical considerations

Abstract

Emanating from work on the provision of health services in severely disrupted environments, this paper looks at the cycle of violence and exploitation that appears to have taken root in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The central focus is on the ethical standpoint of Western civil society in relation to individuals in environments like the DRC, where the state may be unable to meet their basic needs. The rights-based approach advocated by Thomas Pogge, Onara O’Neill’s conception of Kantian obligations, and Peter Singer’s consequentialist dichotomy between moral duties and supererogation are interrogated. Finding all three unconvincing, the paper concludes by proposing that civil society in the West engage with individuals in places like the DRC on the basis of Levinasian ethics and Derrida’s conception of gift giving