Analysis Of Peter Singer's The Singer Solution To World Poverty

What do you do when charitable organizations call you asking for money? Do you donate money to the organization or do you ignore it? In 1999 Peter Singer wrote the article The Singer Solution to World Poverty where he argues “that each one of us with wealth surplus to his or her essential needs should be giving most of it to help people suffering poverty so dire as to be life-threatening.” Singer does this by introducing his article with two very different examples: a woman who saved a child’s life and a man who killed a child to save his Bugatti. Secondly, he proposes how much money would be required to save a child from starvation, $200, and explains why more people do not give even though in the grand scheme of things $200 is not that much money. Third, he acknowledges that it would be counterproductive to ask people to give to much, especially when many do not believe that they need to give more than their fair share; he even points out that this also applies to countries with the United States giving .09% when the

Singer begins new parts of his argument with rhetorical questions. Because the question of how much to give is such a controversial topic, Singer needs to be able to answer the variety of questions readers will have about his claim throughout the article, and the best way for him to do that is to anticipate the questions readers and answer them in his article. In the question about giving more than our share is an excellent example of this. This device works two-fold. First, it answers the questions many people will add increasing his credibility. Second, it acknowledges the readers initial response and points out the flaws in their reason in effect making his argument