ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author examines the responsibility one might have for a stranger. By 'stranger' he means someone to whom he has no formal duties, other than the general liberal duty to refrain from harming or hindering him without justification. First, the author suggested that the 'responsive doctor' might consider herself to be on duty outside the hospital or surgery and outside her normal working hours, and therefore available for anyone, not just her allocated patients, to approach her with their health problems. The main episode that other philosophers and the author wish to concentrate on is that with the slave-hunters. Huckleberry Finn's encounter with the slave-hunters could plausibly be described as an example of 'moral incapacity'. Jonathan Bennett has used Huck as a counter-example to the supposed authority of the 'voice of conscience' in moral decision-making.
