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An innocent child begs her mother for food, a single tear running down her cheek. The fires of life that once filled the girl’s eyes slowly begin to fade. The mother embraces her child, tells her the pain will be gone within a few moments. As she holds her, she feels the warmth slip away; her little girl’s body becomes engulfed by empty coldness. So much could have been done to save that life, from local government support to foreign aid, yet not enough aid was given. And so, society is posed with the question of “How much aid should wealthy nations provide for developing countries?” This paper will look at the philosophy behind this question by analyzing two articles. The first article that will be examined is “Obligations to People We …show more content…

LaBossiere’s article presents the unsaid conclusion that the reason for helping others then is not logical, but irrational.
Irrationality leads us to our next article, one that discusses the concept of love. Ancient Greeks believed there were multiple forms of loves, one of which is “agape”. In the second article, published on August 13th, 2008, “Agape: Sacrificial Love”, by Father John Bakas, the author defines agape as love that is “sacrificial seeking to serve” (Bakas, 2008). Father John Bakas is the founder of multiple charity projects, ranging from Project Nino, whose goal is to provide free healthcare to poverty stricken Mexican children, to the Rotary House Children’s Hospice in Fresno, Ca. The main purpose of this article is to illustrate the importance of sacrificial love. A significant portion of the article is an excerpt from Nikos Kazantzakis’s memoir. This excerpt uses a major appeal to emotions, and although this in itself is not an issue, the article does not provide an abundance of concrete data for why this type of love is beneficial. The article relies heavily on situational emotionalism. This can be seen when the excerpt says, “He was extremely pale, and his eyes were swollen and inflamed, as though from weeping” (LaBossiere 2014) and “My eyes filled with tears” (LaBossiere 2014). This article has the reader conclude that sacrificial love is of the upmost importance. Once this is established, the idea of agape can be used to argue

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