Conditional Obligation, Permissibility, and the All or Nothing Problem

In Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, the agent has three options: a permissible act that saves no one, a wrongful act that saves only one child, or a supererogatory act that saves two children. Some may argue that if the agent is not going to save two children, she should save none rather than just one. However, this conclusion is counterintuitive. Although there are many proposed solutions to this problem, none of them provides a fully satisfactory answer. In this article, I argue that it is plausible to accept the Individualist Obligation Principle according to which, the agent is morally permitted to fulfill a prima facie obligation to save an individual in grave peril, provided that doing so demonstrates a substantial engagement with the individualized obligations to each individual involved.