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What Should A Billionaire Give Peter Singer Summary

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Please help the children of this third world country by donating just one dollar a day. You can’t turn on the television without seeing a commercial asking you to donate to help feed the impoverished or to supply much needed medicine. In the article, “What Should a Billionaire Give – and What Should You?” the author attempts to make a point of giving money to charitable organizations, much like these commercials. Peter Singer’s article dives into the realm of philanthropy in order to aid the impoverished by appealing to logic through reasoning and statistics, and emotion by using examples throughout the writing. However, the author is discredited because of his ethics and controversial personal views from the past.
This article first appeared in The New York Times, which is targeted to an upscale readers three times more likely to have a postgraduate degree and twice as likely to make more than $100,000 per year. The author, Peter Singer, is an Australian born ethical philosopher with controversial views such as stating that infants with a handicap should be euthanized but is strongly against the death penalty. American …show more content…

He assumes that the billionaires are giving to ease their consciences or to generate favorable publicity. The author points out that David Kirkpatrick, a technology writer for Forbes Magazine, believes Gates’ turn to philanthropy was a result of the antitrust issues Microsoft had in the U.S. and European Union. Singer moves on to question whether there is an obligation for the wealthy to give, and if so, how much should they give. While some strongly believe the rich have worked hard for their money and, therefore, should be able to spend it as they please, others believe that “social capital” is responsible for 90 percent of what they earn. A flat 90 percent income tax for everyone is socialism which, in turn, has obvious negative

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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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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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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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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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Peter Singer’s believes that we have a moral obligation to help others unless it will cause something else comparably bad to happen. He starts by comparing how much some poorer nations give in assistance to reduce suffering than some of the richer nations. Then he goes on to talk about how major emergencies are alike but there magnitude is different and how in many parts of the world people are dying from malnutrition and lack of food. He says that our “moral conceptual scheme- needs to be altered and with it, the way of life that has come to be taken for granted in our society” (Rachels, 155). I agree with Singer that we have come to take a lot for granted in our society, there are many things that we never have to experience that others in

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Another example from Singer was inspired by another philosopher, Peter Unger, who in his work Living High and Letting Die created several imaginary examples about whether it is wrong to live well without giving money to help people in need. This example is about a man named Bob who invested most of his life savings in a very rare and expensive car, a Bugatti. Bob gets vast amounts of pleasure from driving the car, and with the car’s rising market value, it provides a profitable investment which can allow him to retire comfortably. One-day Bob is

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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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One argument that Singer provides in “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” is that individuals who give aid to those in need are probably more well off than those who do not give aid. However, regardless of where one stands financially, aid should still be given by all those who can give. A counter argument that Singer provides is that one might say if one individual gives, they may think that if more people also gave, then they would not have to give as much. A person might find it unfair if they are contributing more to benefit others than what other individuals are giving. In addition to this, one way this could be done would be by adding the “burden” of aiding overseas countries through taxes.

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