The Seeming Simplicity of Measurement*

Abstract

The key issue this chapter tries to address relates to a challenge raised by Keith Horton’s chapter “The Epistemic Problem: Potential Solutions”, this volume in response to Peter Singer’s proposition (1999) that the rich have a moral obligation to assist the world’s poor and therefore should give a reasonable proportion of their income to those agencies whose aim it is to alleviate poverty and suffering. Horton’s challenge is that surely this moral obligation only applies if those in a position to give some of their income in this way have some ability to satisfy themselves that the agency or agencies to which they might give, are able to demonstrate the net effect of their work is good enough to imply that we should give to them. He goes on to argue that it is in fact very difficult for those who are not experts on aid to find out what the effects of aid actually are; this he calls the ‘Epistemic Problem’.