Liam B. Murphy posits the ethical dilemma of the "child in the lake" in two contexts. First, the question involves consideration of the cost (in terms of time and money) to a potential rescuer who comes upon a drowning child. Second, the question involves consideration of how much one person owes ethically to a situation in which two children are drowning and another potential rescuer is present. Obviously, there are different possible responses to these cases, but Murphy boils the issue down to a question of weighing "immediate and distant sources of demands" (Murphy 64a). The overriding consideration, in fact, is not the drowning children necessarily, but instead those who lives are threatened by starvation on the other side of the world. What ethical demands of beneficence are there on the individual who wants to lead an ethical life? What factors weigh in that individual's consideration of how much he will do to save a life in his or her immediate vicinity, and how much he will do to save the life of a person very distant from him?
Of the two philosophers Peter Singer and Onora Nell, only Singer directly addresses the question of the "child in the lake," and even then in terms far more simple than set forth by Murphy, but we may make a number of assumptions about the likely responses of Singer and Nell by examining their views on the question of the individual's ethical responsibility for starving people. It will be the fundamental argument of this study that Singer's likely response to these ethical considerations are more better than Nell's because they resound more effectively in both the reader's mind and heart. Morality, like it or not, is not merely an issue of logic, as Nell seems to believe, but rather also must appeal to the heart of the audience addressed.
Murphy concludes that it is the responsibility of the individual to save the single child drowning in the lake, as well as his or her same responsibility to save...