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This strikes me as a weak moral argument.
There isn't any good ethical basis for privileging one human being over another based on their proximity—genetically or geographically—to you. Of course there is a biological basis for this, and it may be practically impossible for most people to overcome this bias. But that doesn't really have any effect on the ethical math.
You just have strong preferences that run counter to ethical concerns.
This is false.
You could, right now, give money directly to impoverished people across the globe to save/transform their lives.
If you want to participate in morality, you are just as ethically bound to them, you just don't feel it.
There absolutely are several.
(1) Practicality. An ethics which people are not likely to follow will not be implemented widely or for long. However noble its aims, such an ethic fails by its own terms. By contrast, an ethics which people are likely to follow, even if slightly less noble, will be implemented widely and for a longer period of time and thus result in more good. As you said, there is a biological bias in favor of genetic or geographic (and I'd add "sociocultural" as well) proximity. If that bias can be taken advantage of to build solidarity, care, and harmony, then it should!
(2) Accessibility. Proximity Bias is a simple concept, common to most human civilizations. It is simple to explain, and thus easy to spread. Moreover, it is also simpler for people of all different capability strata to implement, even without supervision. It's not perfect, and people being people it will sometimes be implemented poorly. But it's easier.
(3) Iterativity. Proximity Bias stresses that individuals should spend their resources on people and things close to them, which are likely to be things which the individual will interact with frequently. This provides for frequent feedback between all parties and frequent assessment of progress. Thus, it limits the ability of middlemen to grift or divert efforts and resources away from the object, as well as generally unlocking the beneficial dynamics present in iterated games more generally. It also allows for short feedback loops to identify and address unforeseen consequences rapidly.
(4) Resiliency. Though Proximity Bias may be less globally efficient, it does allow for the building of general reserves of both physical and social capital which can be leveraged to counteract/mitigate emergencies. Further, because it is decentralized, there is no single point of failure in the system.
Sorry, nope. Ties go both ways, or not at all. I am bound to those who have some duty to me. Beyond that, I have a duty to cause no unnecessary harm. If, after I have fulfilled my local duties, I still have resources left over, then, and only then, can I look outwards to perform charity on complete strangers. But that's a very high bar to clear.
You seem to be confusing is/ought.
If you choose not to give your life to save 10 people, you are a selfish coward.
I don't mean that as harshly as it sounds, as we are all born selfish cowards, wired that way as a result of billions of years of evolution. And then it's reinforced by our culture. It's super hard not to be a selfish coward.
We don't like to think of ourselves as selfish cowards, so we imagine ourselves to be moral, even when the evidence is clear.
3 million children die of starvation each year. You can literally, truly, concretely, actually save a number of their lives. Say, 10 lives. Just by forgoing insanely lavish luxuries that we all treat "middle class" in the West. You wouldn't even have to forfeit your life, just a bunch of your stuff.
Now, I don't believe people should be forced to sacrifice themselves or sell their shit. It's a personal decision they should arrive at after doing the rational/ethical math.
But the math is clear.
I deny that human morality is math at all. People are not indistinguishable, interchangeable, widgets. The essence of humanity is sociability - our particular relationships and cooperation with each other. Your cold math at best ignores it, and at worst denigrates it as pernicious. That's a recipe for trouble.
Ha. You feel attacked. I get it. :)
You're placing a higher value on the lives of some people due to their proximity to you. This is because you are selfish, by nature. Reputation, reciprocation, kin selection, etc. These are all "is" considerations. (It's cool we all feel it.)
It's only because conscious experience exists that morality exists; it's only by rationally thinking through the implication of this that you can participate in morality. The moral way of assessing value is by measuring the capacity to suffer, or the other end, experience happiness/flourishing. And it's when you do that you realize there is no (unselfish) basis to place a higher value on anyone. You'll see that it's only your selfishness that blinds you to this simple truth.
A man you've never met in Kenya is of equal moral value to your father. This sentence flies in the face of everything we feel, but it's obviously morally true.
Again, is/ought. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
Roughly, yes. "God" being, similar to what you said, some kind of abstraction of a universal ethic.
This is all false.
There are people who've given their lives for strangers. There are people who've donated organs to strangers. There are people who've sold all their possessions above subsistence and give it to strangers. People who give all their income above subsistence to strangers.
Then why do you keep saying things that prove otherwise?
It's obvious in the way I said it was:
If you can't see it's obvious that all people are of the same value, it's just selfishness. Like, you've been deluded into thinking your Self is privileged, and other people are privileged because of their proximity to your Self. This is obviously immoral, enforced by evolution & culture.
Again, if you had to choose to either save a starving child's life, or have a high thread count duvet cover and heated seats, and you choose the luxuries instead of the child's life and welfare, then you are a selfish coward. And that is what you (and I) are doing. Not theoretically. We're actually choosing to do it in the real, concrete world.
I won't quibble about numbers here. My point was only that it's not at all impossible. But it's certainly not popular.
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