This book provides a full treatment of an issues which is particularly pressing: when the claims of the nearest (e.g.parents, children, spouses, friends) conflict with the claims of the neediest, as they constantly do, where should preference? Professor Hallett focuses first on a specific, representative case, pitting the lesser need of a son against the greater need of starving strangers.
Christians have agreed, as have others, that preference should go to some extent to one's nearest, and also to some extent to the neediest. However, to what extent should we give preference to which group? And suppose these two preferences come into conflict, as they frequently do? This book provides the fullest contemporary treatment of these issues. The author brings to bear all the resources…