Moore on Doing versus Allowing Harm

Michael Moore's Causation and Responsibility^ is a comprehensive and fascinating study of the relationship between the law, moralify, and metaphysics. One of the most interesting (and, at the same time, controversial) theses Moore defends in this book is the claim that some central legal concepts are grounded in metaphysical concepts. In particular, Moore emphasizes the key role played in the law by what he argues is the natural relation of causation studied by metaphysicians. A main illustration of this thesis by Moore concerns the distinction between actions and omissions and between doing and allowing harm, which is a pervasive topic in the book.^ Moore believes that there is an important metaphysical difference between actions and omissions that is causal in nature: actions can be causes but omissions cannot.^ This causal difference, Moore claims, generates a moral difference between actions and omissions and between, roughly, doing and allowing harm." (I say "roughly" because, although for