The ‘close to home’ criterion breaks down when moral concern for creatures overrides proximity.

Evidence

Referring to the group that was trying to in£uence U.S. policy abroad, Carolyn said, I would much rather look for something close to home, close to me.'' But, she chuckled, she was very concerned about three whales that had been in the news that week, trapped in Arctic ice with an international rescue force trying to dig them out. Now, whales, they were far away, but they’re animals!” Carolyn laughed at herself, noticing that the habitual phrase “close to home” did not exactly ¢t. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”, 26

Categorization

• XREF: Reveals the moral logic these volunteers apply is closer to Judith Butler’s and others’ work on whose lives count as grievable than to simple NIMBY psychology; the whale case shows the schema bending. — connects to: Proximity grounds moral responsibility while abstract categories remain morally neutral. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 526; Moral responsibility to others shrinks and vanishes with increasing distance — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 547; Moral inhibitions do not act at a distance and depend on proximity — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 546 (+4 more)
• corroborated: 5 independent passages support this claim — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 26

Related

• Volunteers notice when their ‘close to home’ rationale fails to explain their own care (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Proximity grounds moral responsibility while abstract categories remain morally neutral. #complicates (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 526
• Moral responsibility to others shrinks and vanishes with increasing distance #exemplifies (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 547
• Moral inhibitions do not act at a distance and depend on proximity #exemplifies (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 546
• Morality dies when social distance replaces proximity, enabling mass murder #exemplifies (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 517
• Moral dispositions are thin and unreliable beyond close communities #exemplifies (0.80) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 281
• Religious solidarity mechanisms extend moral concern to complete strangers #exemplifies (0.80)