Summary Of Famine, Affluence And Morality By Peter Singer

Each person has their own understanding on moral obligation, and their actions with moral obligation influence society a lot. In “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, Peter Singer point out that rich people or nations ought to help the poor one as much as they can. Singer thinks that only in this way, both society and world will become better. I admit that rich people should help poor people to improve their life, however, these supporting should not influence the living quality of rich people, and the correct way for supporting is to encourage poor people to work hard, but not let them rely on others’ money.
Singer first points out that” if we can prevent a bad thing happen without sacrificing any comparable moral importance, we ought do it, and instead, we should not promote good thing.” He uses the example that many countries spend a lot on development and only provide limited supporting on poor countries which lack of food and medicine. Rich countries also need developing, and if they stop developing, they will not be able to earn money and not be rich anymore. Earning money is not easy, rich countries may also poor in the past. Best way to avoid suffering for a country is

However, he forget that people want to get pleasure. For most people, working is painful, but they can earn money and buy things which let them enjoy their life. Besides survival, an important meaning of life is pleasure. People are willing to help others if these cost will not influence their life. However, if they use all the money on helping others instead of enjoying life, the only thing they get is the painful from working. Singer may refutes that we can save others’ life if we use these money to support others. However, no one is born just for saving others’ life. If one can not get pleasure from their efforts, their life may become