Prof. Oderberg writes on the popular critique of the act/omission distinction (AOD) in Moral Theory: A Non-Consequentialist Approach:
It is commonplace among writers on applied ethics to deny that there is any intrinsic moral difference between acts and omissions, by which they mean that if there is any difference it cannot consist in the fact that something was an act or omission. Rather, any difference there may be consists in the outcome or total consequences of the act or omission. To use an example of Phillipa Foot’s (though she denies the critics’ point, claiming instead that there is an intrinsic moral difference), if letting starving people die in Africa because I give no money to aid agencies is not as bad as sending them poisoned food, this could only be because the latter would cause far more resentment and anger than the former, and hence more total harm, assuming (implausibly, in fact) that we would assess the number of deaths in both cases to be the same; but not because omitting to give the money was, as such, less bad that [sic] sending the poisoned food.
He then offers a useful clarification on what is meant by ‘omission’ in traditional moral theory:
AOD does not claim that there is something special about mere inaction. Nero would have been no less culpable if, instead of fiddling while Rome burned, he had merely sat on his imperial throne and done nothing. Some cases of inaction are every bit as bad as the worst actions, such as a mother’s not feeding her child so that it starves to death, or a judge’s omitting to call evidence from a defendant, in violation of natural justice. Nor does AOD deny that omissions can be causes of harm; both of the omissions just mentioned cause great harm.
Nor does AOD hold that omissions do not involve action. When Nero fiddled while Rome burned, he omitted to do anything to save Rome, but he also played the violin; and had he stayed still on his throne, he still would have been sitting.
Finally, the distinction between acts and omission can be defended when considering an agent’s duties or obligations and whether he or she failed to realize those duties. From Oderberg:
I have a duty to not kill the innocent, whoever and wherever they are, but I am under no equivalent duty to save the innocent. To take Phillipa Foot’s example again, a person may not be under an obligation to save certain people, such as the starving in a remote country, but he is duty-bound not to send them poisoned food. When assessing whether or not an omission to do something is culpable, we need to see the notion of failure as central. A culpable omission is not merely a refraining from doing something, but a failure to act; and a failure to act implies that there is a pre-existing duty to act.
More discussion on duty, omission, and euthanasia follows in his companion volume Applied Ethics.
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