Peter Singer Provides Us With A Moral Challenge

In Famine, Affluence and Morality, Peter Singer provides us with a moral challenge. He argues that “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. By "without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance”. Which means that if there is way that we prevent something bad without losing something similar to that stature, it morally right to do it. I agree with his agreement. If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, we should do it. But I do not agree with the fact that we are “obligated” to do it; meaning that if we do not do it, it is wrong. It is not wrong to not give to the needy, if one does not feel

The fact that a person is physically near to us, so that we have personal contact with him, may make it more likely that we shall assist him, but this does not show that we ought to help him rather than another who happens to be further away. If we accept any principle of impartiality, universalizability, equality, or whatever, we cannot discriminate against someone merely because he is far away from us”. Singer is saying that we should help a complete stranger the same way we would help a close relative, like a brother or a cousin. I do not agree with that because I would obviously would help my brother more than a complete stranger because he is my brother. For ex- if two people hanging of a cliff and one of them is your brother and the next person is a complete stranger and you can save only one, most of the time people would choose to save their brother instead of a complete stranger. Furthermore, like I said before, there is no guarantee that my help will be received by the people in need. Therefore, I think impartiality do not come to play to when we are talking about loved ones because almost all the time loved ones win over