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Peter Singer Argument

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The less fortunate are often overlooked because of their distance in the world. Contrary to this popular belief, philosopher Peter Singer believes that distance is both irrelevant and insignificant when helping others. Throughout this essay, I will argue in favor of Singer’s arguments. I believe Singer is accurate when he claims distance is irrelevant when human lives are at stake. Privileged people should always help the less fortunate as long as they are not sacrificing anything of comparable moral value. I will first summarize Singer’s interpretation of distance and moral responsibility and the examples he uses to further explain it. Then I will legitimize why distance is irrelevant in the given situation of famine and morality. Lastly, …show more content…

In addition, he explains that these fatal instances are not inevitable, and they can be stopped. Therefore, he believes we all must do everything in our power to prevent starvation and famine from occurring. Singer’s only condition is to help others without sacrificing anything of comparable value. For instance, do not give money to the needy if by doing that you will become poor yourself. In his explanation he uses a drowning baby as an example. If a man witnesses an innocent child drowning in a nearby pond, he should not be concerned about getting muddy or ruining his brand new pair of shoes, he should save the baby, because dirtying a pair of clean shoes or getting wet is not giving up something of comparable moral value ( Singer (1972), pg. 231). Additionally, Singer clarifies the distance between charity and duty. He explains charity is something that is beyond duty and it is not required for everyone to participate. And this explains why a charitable person is praised for their actions and an uncharitable man is not condemned. Singer believes that duty is required for every person (Singer (1927), pg. 235). Ultimately, Singer believes that the fortunate need to drastically revise their way of thinking. Giving to famine relief should be thought of as a duty rather than charity and should be morally required by everyone

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In Singer’s “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” he argues the importance of donation to poor people, which could mean the difference between life and death for children in need. He gives an example for Bob, who has an opportunity to save a child’s life, but he could lose his worthy car. He makes a comparison between people who are capable to donate money to save children lives and people who have no chance to help or donate under certain situation such as Bob. He also encourages people who are in the middle class to donate at a minimum of 200$; furthermore, he thinks that people should donate more like 200.000$ when they consider the level of sacrifice that they would demand of Bob’s situation. He gives some estimates for the amount of donations that people should give to overseas.

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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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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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