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Comparing Famine, Affluence, And Morality By Peter Singer

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Here I will lay out each philosophers viewpoint and then highlight some of the differences between the two, as well as draw my own conclusion as to which method is more compatible with my own stance. Perhaps I offer a personal view that may incorporate own perspective independent of either. Adopting a utilitarian approach in his 1971 essay, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Peter Singer makes an argument for personal responsibility. He feels under necessity to speak about the lack of interest from those with the ability to help, each of us should extend our resources as far as they will reach to help others in need. Asserting his position that humanity has an obligation and ethical responsibility to recognize the need of others and give as …show more content…

Additionally, the stringency of the application of Singer’s utilitarian principle requires that 100% of information about 100% of possible outcomes of an action be a known in order for his methodology to be effective. When contemplating issues as large as world hunger, it seems impossible to anticipate every possible outcome before acting. Related to this, I pose a more precise set of questions to Singers methodology of consequentialism. If one is not able to make the most beneficent decision, what decision are they to make? Are they required to make a choice anyway, and if so, what are the criteria for that process inside the consequentialist viewpoint? Unaddressed as even a possible outcome in the text, would acting in a way contrary to the principle still be considered acting within the boundaries defined by the method? If an action has taken place in a manner undefined by the principle, has the principle then changed? I ask these questions because it seems unlikely that Singers’ principles could ever be fully applied to society. If Singer, himself, admits the application of his methods to be implausible, is his ideology even …show more content…

Singer’s utilitarianism requires a person’s moral responsibility for their actions be determined by the end consequences of that action, while O’Neill holds that responsibility of the individual is determined by the intention of their action. Under Singer, an individual must know the ends of their action will be beneficent to a famine situation. O’Neill believes that the fact that you are providing aid in itself is the action you should be judged through. Thus Kantian ethics sees one’s intentions as crucial to the morality of one’s acts, whereas utilitarian ethics sees only the results of one’s actions as

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He argues that people especially those living an affluent lifestyle need to alter their entire perception of morality. He puts forward the assumption he relies on in order to continue with his argument (automatically considering that assumption to be true): death and suffering due to the lack of basic necessities of life are bad. Singer then states the principle which is if we can prevent terrible occurrences without sacrificing something of equal moral significance then we should go ahead and do so; this principle plays a major role in his argument. Next, he puts forward a more moderate version of the principle by replacing equal moral significance with anything of moral significance. The nature of the principle, according to Singer, is contentious, for if applied has the potential to change everything about our values and lives.

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While pointing out that it is much easier to ignore an appeal for money to help those you’ll never meet than to consign a child to death, Singer uses his utilitarian philosophy to deflect the argument, stating that “if the upshot of the American’s failure to donate the money is that one more kid dies… then it is, in some sense, just as bad as selling the kid to the organ peddlers.” This argument, however, can only be made while using false dilemmas. Singer also addresses a large criticism of his work, that one can’t decide moral issues by taking opinion polls. The argument to this reiterates how the audience would feel being in these situations. This argument is poor as it does not address how the entire article is based on how everyone feels about this particular subject.

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To do good or to do justice? The question in me arises after learning about Jan Narveson and Peter Singer’s opposing views when it comes to feeding the hungry. In a nutshell, Peter Singer believes we have an obligation to give to charity, and Jan Narveson completely disagrees. Both have very distinctive views, Jan Narveson being a libertarian and Peter Singer being a utilitarian, making it hard to support one more than the other. As you read my essay, you will learn about Jan Narveson and Peter Singer’s different point of views when it comes to the universal issue of feeding the hungry, and how they can become conflicting.

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From a triage perspective, it may appear to be horrible but it also may be the solution we need to solve this long-term problem. Looking at Singer’s claim to aid those in absolute poverty it would only be seen as a short-term solution to a long-term problem. The triage perspective appears to be the most realistic solution when it comes to aiding those in poverty and although not everyone would receive aid, it would see it that everyone wouldn’t be reverted to absolute

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Though Singer raises a great argument on morality and famine, his obligations can be too demanding. How much can morality demand of us? His obligations limit our freedom to act and may even demand us to act in opposition to our interests as he demands that we must always make the morally utmost choice. Singer’s principle also will require us to not favor our moral concerns we may have. Also, if everyone were to follow their moral obligations, wouldn’t people have sacrificed much more than they needed to?

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In this paper I will be arguing against Peter Singer’s views on poverty, which he expresses in his paper “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”. Singer argues that all people with wealth surplus to their essential needs are morally obligated to prevent the suffering of those in dire situations. I will argue that you can not hold people morally obligated to prevent the suffering of others, and that people can only be held morally obligated to prevent suffering that they themselves caused. To begin, we will look at Singers beliefs and arguments regarding poverty and the responsibility of people to help those in need. Singer’s first arguments revolves around a girl named Dora, who is a retired schoolteacher, who is barely making a living writing

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The Singer Solution to World Poverty Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics, wrote an article featured in The New York Times Magazine. “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” which explored Singer’s idea of taking all money which is not being used for necessities, from people across the world. This idea would, as Singer purpose, is supposedly supposed to solve the World’s poverty issue. However with an issue this complex, a solution is not always going to black and white, thus it is important to weigh the pros and cons before rejecting or endorsing this idea.

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There can be no doubt that people should be morally free to live their own lives and pursue and develop their own interests, to a certain degree at the very least. This necessitates then that a person is morally permitted to dedicate one’s time, energy, and money to activities that don’t directly have an impact on famine relief or similar worthy causes. For example, it could frequently happen and has happened whereby certain pursuits and recreations have beneficial and favourable outcomes and consequences that could not have been foreseen. My argument lies with the issue that if people are not free to follow their intellectual interests when it is not obvious what positive impact they might have, or whether they would have any positive repercussions at all, humanity in general could be worse off than we actually are. This is tied to Singer’s argument if people are obligated to do as much as they possibly can, to aid famine relief, they would have to give up many of their own special projects and interests in order to do so.

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For Singer the capacity for pleasure and pain is a pre-requisite for the foetus having any interests at all. The moral difference arises between an entity with an interest and the one without. Only the interest bearing entity is a person whose interests must not be

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When a person is going to make a moral decision based on consequentialism, he or she first look at the good and bad possible consequences of the action, then determine whether the total good consequences outweigh the total bad.

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Utilitarian moral theories evaluate the moral worth of action on the basis of the consequence such as; the amount of happiness that is produced by an action, for the individual undertaking the action. For example; treating someone utterly as a means and not as an end in themselves as it benefits you only and you are then happy. Moreover ‘Utilitarianism’ is a theory in normative where mill states ethics holding that the best moral action is the one that maximizes utility, the ‘utilitarian’ ethics are also based around how much utility and benefit would action provide you , whereas ‘Kant’s theory contradicts that and states is not the consequence of an action which shows the moral/ rightness and wrongness of an action, and because of this

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What is the famine, and what were the consequences? What is the Great famine? The great famine is was a period of starvation, disease, and emigration in Ireland between 1845 and 1852. One of the main reasons I have chose this topic is because its an very important part of Irelands history, it is estimated that aproxemently 1 million people died, and

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