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The Singer Solution To World Poverty Summary

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Analysis: The Singer Solution to World Poverty

In Peter Singer’s The Singer Solution to World Poverty he discusses the merits of giving up our luxuries in order to help save someone’s life. He has a situation (hypothetical) of Bob who has saved his entire life to buy a Bugatti. He has not insured the car and is taking it for a drive, he parks the car by the end of a rail way track and gets out for a walk. While walking he can see a train coming down the track straight for his car. Now he can throw a switch in order to divert the train away from his car (his pride and joy) but there is a child playing on the train tracks. Now he comes the moral dilemma he can either save his car or possibly kill the child. In the end he decides to throw the …show more content…

It’s extraordinary how much money we spend on things that are completely unnecessary to our survival. Not every house needs a TV in every room and not all students need a personal computer. However we as people are greedy by nature and therefor do end up spending tons of money on things like that. This is promoted more and more through social media, TV, magazines, newspapers, etc… Yet we could be spending more (if not all) of our extra money of helping others who have nothing. Peter Unger a New York University Philosopher calculated the cost to save a child’s life “By his calculation, $200 in donations would help a sickly two-year-old child transform into a healthy six-year-old” (Singer). However, there are certain problems with his argument.
Many Americans may not be able to afford to give all of their extra money towards charity. What if an emergency happened and they had no extra money to deal with the problem? What if the $30,000 quite a bit lower than the cost of surviving in the area that you live? These raise some serious questions on my part on how realistic his argument is. Also that cost of living will change with inflation over the years meaning the cost could be lower or higher in the future depending on the circumstances. There are still many arguments that Singer is wrong on his opinion of

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1699 Words | 7 Pages

Generally, Singer hopes that people should make a plausible budget to donate money to strangers (384). He starts criticizing Americans who waste their money in things that not necessary to them when he said, “The average family in United States spends almost one-third of its income on things that are no more necessary to them than Dora’s new TV was to her” (379). Here, Singer is trying to warn families not to spend money in not necessary things that this money could mean difference between life and death. At this point, the author is very serious about people’s spending, which could save children’s lives. He also gives his reader a story about Bob, who been in a difficult situation that he can save a child’s life, but he could lose his fancy

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794 Words | 4 Pages

By providing a specific number, $200, Singer demonstrates how simple and reasonable it is to save a child in poverty. Additionally, he repeats, “to save a child’s life,” which demonstrates exactly what a $200 donation could do for a child in poverty. As an example, Singer references a credible philosopher, Peter Unger, and acknowledges that “by his calculation, $200 in donations would help a sickly 2-year-old transform into a healthy 6-year-old.” Next, he establishes, “if you were to give up dining out just for one month, you would easily save that amount.” Singer emphasizes this to show the reader how simple it is to save $200, and, more importantly, save the life of a helpless child.

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557 Words | 3 Pages

Peter Singer argues that prosperous people should donate their excess money to the overseas aid groups. When saying this, he believes Americans should stop spending their money on luxuries such as a TV, a computer, a car, and videogames. Instead of spending money on items such as that, he thought we should start sending money to those who are starving in other countries and need our help. There are pros and cons to Singer’s argument and both can be greatly supported.

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541 Words | 3 Pages

“The Monkey's Paw” is a tale with a strong message that can be looked at in many different ways. The novel “The Monkey's Paw” and its short film counterpart have many similarities and differences. The novel and the film “The Monkey's Paw” both have some of the same characters, dialogue, and same characterization but other aspects of both the film and the story are different such as plot. The Monkey's Paw has some of the same Dialogue.

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Peter Singer himself writes, “We can give to organizations like Unicef or Oxfam America” (Singer, 737). If the wealthy people were to help the poor out, there is no reason to bother in using children of the poor to feed the wealthy. The money that will be provided can go into making shelters in which those children can live happily. There is no reason for those who do not trust organizations, to be selfish. They themselves can create their own organization, give children shelters and their parents a job as well.

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491 Words | 2 Pages

The owl-eyed man is found exiting his car after it was driven into a ditch. One of the front wheels of the car fell off as a result; the car was ruined. To a person of a lower class, this accident would have been a tragedy as car repairs are not cheap. However, to the owl-eyed man, a man of the upper class, this is an ordeal that in order to fix, it would not leave even a scuff on his

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He also notices that a child is on the track and is very likely to be killed by the oncoming train. Bob is unable to stop the train and the boy is too far away to warn, but he can use a switch that will change the train’s path away from the child but will instead trajectory the train towards his Bugatti. Bob does not turn the switch because he wants to keep his car and the financial benefits that come with it. The boy is killed and Bob lives happily with his Bugatti and the money he gets from it. Most will agree that Bob’s lack of action was horribly wrong.

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1292 Words | 6 Pages

Money: the root of most social problems and one of the few matters that almost everyone has an opinion on. Peter Singer’s “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” a newspaper article, is no exception. Singer argues that one should donate all unnecessary money to the less fortunate because of the morality of the situation. However, though the goal is noble, his commentary is very ineffective due to its condescending tone, lack of hard facts, and overall extremism. The piece is written by Peter Singer, an Australian professor of bioethics at Princeton University.

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Singer argues that most wealthy people have the solution to end poverty in their hands to end poverty, but most of them don’t do it. Peter’s solution works for people who have enough money to spend on luxuries, but it fails for people who live based on their weekly income. Therefore, Singer’s successful essay gives ideas on how to save money monthly to donate, but it fails when the author urges people where and how much to donate instead of giving them the freedom to choose. Peter present his first character from a Brazilian movie. Dora is a women who got $1000 dollars for convincing and taking a homeless boy to a place where the child will be adopted.

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Due to this reason, Singer states that the fair donation argument fails and would not be enough to fix the problem. Now that we have an understanding of Singer’s beliefs, I can show how Singer would respond to the question given in the prompt. Peter would say that yes he should donate, but the small amounts he would be choosing to donate would be nowhere near the amount that he should be choosing to give. Singer would say that any money that he isn’t spending on necessities should be donated to help those in dire situations, and that not doing so is

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576 Words | 3 Pages

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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3128 Words | 13 Pages

Philip Manning 12504697 Q) Evaluate Peter Singer’s argument in ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’. There can be no doubt that Peter Singer’s argument in ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’ is unrealistic, unfair and not sustainable. Singer’s arguments are valid arguments but not sound. In order to get a clear and balanced view of my arguments which disprove the Singer article, it is first necessary to examine and lay out the main aspects of Singer’s argument in ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’. My arguments against Singer’s claims shall then be detailed and examined in depth.

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744 Words | 3 Pages

Lastly, Singer argues that we can actually make a difference without sacrificing a lot. By the end of “Rich and Poor” Singer concludes that we owe it to others to prevent absolute poverty. Throughout this paper there are many problems that I have found to be true. For Singers first argument he uses an

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820 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Buechner once said, “Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin.” Similarly, an author by the name of Barbara Lazear Ascher wrote an essay called “On Compassion,” in which she states that people learn about compassion when they experience hardships and begin to put oneself in another’s place. Along with the idea of compassion being learned, Ascher also tries to make us wonder what our motive is that leads us to being compassionate. Ascher tries to make us question why we feel the need to be compassionate towards others throughout her essay.

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1448 Words | 6 Pages

Never the less, it’s ironic how in the 21st century we prize ourself for being progressive when almost half of us - over 3 billion people - can’t even conjure up what life is like beyond ‘the poverty trap’ they are in. We prize ourselves, when one out of every two children is poor. Can you imagine growing up as one of the 640 million kids whom have no adequate shelter, let alone a place to call home? Or the 400 million to whom safe drinking water is simply a figment of their imagination? Or maybe the 270 million who have no means of getting health care?

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