 Is there a moral difference between doing harm and  merely[1]  allowing harm? If not, there should be no moral objection to active euthanasia in circumstances where passive euthanasia is permissible; and there should be no objection to bombing innocent civilians where doing so will minimize the overall number of deaths in war. There should, however, be an objection—indeed, an outcry—at our failure to prevent the deaths of millions of children in the third world from malnutrition, dehydration, and  measles.[2]  Moreover, it seems that the question is pertinent to whether consequentialism is true, as consequentialists believe that doing harm is no worse than merely allowing harm while anti-consequentialists, almost universally, disagree. But is there a moral difference between doing harm and merely allowing harm? We might divide approaches to this question into two broad kinds. First, those that attempt to answer it without saying anything about the nature of the distinction either by use of examples (‘the contrast strategy’) or by appealing to considerations that are purportedly independent of the precise nature of distinction. And, second, those that analyze the distinction in depth and try to show that its underlying nature dictates an answer to the moral question.