In Peter Singer’s 1972 post titled “Famine, Affluence and Morality”, he conveys that wealthy nations, for example the United States, has an ethical duty to contribute much a lot more than we do with regards to worldwide assistance for famine relief and/or other disasters or calamities which may happen. In this document, I will describe Singers objective in his work and give his argument with regards to this problem. I will describe 3 counter-arguments to Singer’s view which he tackles, and after that reveal Singer’s reactions to those counter-arguments. I will explain Singer’s idea of marginal utility and also differentiate how it pertains to his argument. I will compare how the ideas of duty and charity alter in his suggested world. To conclude, I will provide my own reaction about this problem supporting singer’s argument. Should wealthier nations have a moral duty to relieve poorer nations if a disastrous event were to happen? I think that we all must contribute in times of need even if this means substantially modifying the way in which we live for the objective of assisting other people so long as it doesn't cause us to suffer.…
Picture living in a community where every minute of every day you were hungry, under-clothed, and afraid death because you are poor. A world in which child dies of hunger every 5 seconds. Now imagine waking up and your biggest problem was which sweater to wear with which jeans. Even though this seems hard to imagine, this life of poverty has been a reality for most people for ages. Before the1900s, few wealthy people would ever think about poverty. Two prominent authors were Garrett Hardin and Peter Singer, who wrote essays about human poverty. They questioned whether to confront the issue of poverty or to ignore it. The first essay is "Life Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor" from the ecologist, Hardin who served as Professor of Human Ecology, and psychology today (1974). The second essay, "The Singer Solution to World Poverty," published in The New York Times Magazine is from the Philosopher Singer, who is currently teaching as as Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University (1999). Hardin's essay focuses primarily on the truth that we can either try to save everyone and die trying or save ourselves and let the flourishing live. He specifically discusses the different views on how to truly help the poor. Singer's essay, on the other hand, contains a much more practical discussion arguing that individuals should donate money to overseas aid organizations to help the impoverished. He applied ethics and approaches the dilemma of poverty. Although both writers address the poverty solution, and both include examples of ethos, pathos, and logos, the differing degrees of these rhetorical strategies renders Hardin's essay much more relatable than Singer's more emotional essay.…
He argues that people have many different reasons to [delete] why they do not donate. His vision is that the people and the government should take care of the problem. He uses a great illustrative imaginative scenario. Basically, let’s say you are walking down the path by the local pond. You have just purchased a brand new pair of running pants worth $100. You see a young child drowning and screaming for help. You have a moral obligation to save that childs[‘s] life and you will sacrifice your brand new pants without question. The child’s life is worth more than your new pair of pants and you do not hesitate to ruin them for the child. Singer says it best, “if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it.” (Singer, 1972) He is basically saying that if by saving that child you do not sacrifice anything, in this case the rescuer’s life, of equal moral importance you should do it.…
In today’s society, many people will value materialistic objects more wanting to have the newest technology or the best brand of electronics rather than helping out a person by just giving them a simple smile. Money is spent on things that are not worth spending that may be useful for another occasion. In the text, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” Peter Singer persuades the readers on how many will have the opportunity to help out a charity and donate money, but people will not take the chance or time to do it. In the other text “On Dumpster Diving” Lars Eighner informs the readers when he was a homeless person and he had to go looking for food in different dumpsters. Eighner explains the ways that a homeless person is able to distinguish…
In his article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Peter Singer outlines his argument for helping those in need in the global community. His main argument is that humans can stop suffering based on our moral decisions.1 Singer calls for the definition of ‘charity’ in our society to have moral implications. People should give governmental and privately. all need to give to charity and all at the same time.…
Peter Singer brings to light a very important global problem, poverty, and offers an extreme solution to solve this problem. Peter Singer argues that the solution to world poverty is living simply and giving all excess household money to charities. Singer uses effective examples to get his point across, but gives an unreasonable solution. He gives the example that the failure to donate money will directly result in the death of children in need. "Whatever money you're spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away." (Singer)…
Singer begins his essay with a simple question, “What is a human life worth?” (578). “Singer suggests that most people would be unwilling to a value on the life another human”. Singer continues the topic by writing about some of the charitable beliefs of Bill Gates and how it was that Gates developed some of those values over time, which was in part due to hearing about a viral infection that kills around five hundred million children each year. Singer then goes on to give a statistic that around a billion people must survive on the equivalent of “less than one U.S. dollar per day” and that “more than ten million children die every year . . . from avoidable, poverty-related…
Within his work, Peter Singer presents an argument that the people who live in affluent countries, the developed world, must drastically change their way of life and their conception of morality in order to help those in need. He begins by giving us an example of a case of famine, Bengal 1971, where people have been suffering and no one was doing anything to even try to alleviate the problem, this includes the government. I have summarized his arguments in the following ways: 1. Suffering caused by the lack of food, shelter, and medical care services is bad, and 2. If we can prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing something…
The real-world application of Singer’s argument is no doubt difficult to implement, but that cannot be considered a fault due to unreasonable demand. Personal discomfort is to be expected, as Singer’s view on moral obligations and global poverty is uncompromisingly utilitarian. Nevertheless, a minor monetary inconvenience for the affluent should be considered relatively insignificant when compared to the incalculable value of a human life. As there are no major inconsistencies to be seen in Singer’s argumentative framework as a whole, there is merit in accepting his position on the moral obligations towards the global…
However, John Arthur disagrees with Singer’s conclusion in his piece, “World Hunger and Moral Obligation: The Case against Singer” and believes that although we should help those in need, it is not imperative to do so. John Arthur’s argument in basic form looks like this:…
In the New York Times Article “ the Singer Solution to World Poverty” the author Peter Singer argues that there is no reason why Americans don’t donate money to the needy when they can afford countless of luxury that are not essential to the preservation of their lives and health. Singer pursue the audience with two different situations trying to motivate the reader to donate money instantly.…
In his ground-breaking essay on the effects of wealth and poverty on global society, Peter Singer juxtaposes the responsibility of the wealthy toward the less fortunate. Singer starts off by giving contrasting examples to the abject and severe poverty of third world countries and examples of the richer nations of the world. It is Singer’s assumption that the richer nations have a duty to help the poorer nations to develop into self sufficient societies. Singer goes on toe assert, that with the right assistance and the right guidance that even those on the lower levels of the economic totem pole can rise out of poverty. The gap between rich and poor is seen on an everyday basis on a local level, but becomes more pronounced as the richer nations are compared to the poorer ones. One of the prime examples of how the more advanced nations tend to have different values that the poorer ones is how the British government spent millions of dollars on developing supersonic transport but spent very little to assist third world countries in feeding refugees and the victims of natural disasters.…
Everyday wealthy and middle class Americans across the country spend money on luxury items such as: flat screen televisions, laptop computers, digital cameras, fancy cars, and smart phones. At the same time, across the globe in poverty stricken countries, people and children are living in destitution. Many of these people lack a basic human need which commonly includes nutrition, healthcare, education, clothing, shelter, and clean water. Peter Singer, author of 'The Singer Solution to World Poverty', suggests that all Americans that are financially stable to donate should be donating all their non-essential money to the needy people across the globe. This seems like the morally right thing to do, however Singers argument overlooks many factors in his bias, and leaves to many questions unanswered to make his essay true or reasonable to any extent. Is it morally right to make a hardworking American give up all luxuries to the needy people they will never meet? Of course, Americans should feel the need to donate to the needy people of our world. Although the amount they donate should be entirely up to them.…
In “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” Peter Singer argues the importance of giving to those in need, especially as those of us in affluent nations have an overabundance of resources. In this paper, I will exposit Singer’s argument and explain the methods and points that he makes. Specially, I will show that through his assumptions and implications, as well as how he refutes counter arguments…
Singer starts out with a metaphor that centers on a woman in South America. The woman sells a child to an adoption agency thinking that the child has a better future there, but she soon finds out that the child will die because of her (Singer 60). She decides against returning the money and claiming the child again because she just used the money to purchase a new entertainment system (Singer 60). Singer uses this story for two reasons, to tug at those emotions that would inspire to donate money immediately and also to show the similarities between Americans and the woman. He claims that Americans are not giving enough because we spend too much money on luxuries (Singer 60). Singer then mentions that even the U.S. government will not meet the United Nations recommended target of 0.7 percent of gross national product (Singer 63). He is enraged by this fact, so proposes a way to be able to help those in…