Rich nations' obligations to help poor nations

Philosophy - Economic Ethics

THE ETHICAL ISSUES of DISPARATE NATIONAL WEALTH

Rich and Poor by Peter Singer:

In Rich and Poor, Singer outlines the proportion of the global human population that lives in poverty and considers the respective arguments about whether or not (and to what extent) citizens of industrialized so-called First-World countries have a moral obligation to assist citizens of so-called Third-World countries. More than a decade and a half since its writing, the specific facts and figures quoted in the essay are out of date, but the conceptual arguments remain substantially the same, irrespective of any changes in precise population estimates or changed circumstances of any of the nations and peoples referenced by Singer in 1993. In that regard, an unacceptably large percentage of human beings alive on earth still endure absolute poverty - a concept defined by Singer - and a disproportionately vast majority of the earth's food and other resources are continually being consumed by citizens living in what Singer describes as absolute affluence. According to Singer, the concept of absolute poverty was introduced by Robert McNamara and used to differentiate the reality of (relative) poverty that exists in the industrialized nations of the Western World from the incomparably harsh reality endured by more than one billion human beings living in absolute poverty in the Third World.

In the more developed countries, poverty means reliance on government assistance programs, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters. In the West, even the poor generally receive enough assistance to eat the minimum necessary calories to avoid malnutrition and sleep somewhere sheltered from the elements. Their poverty status is in relation to other in their society who are wealthy enough to own property and enjoy some of the privileges of relative affluence. However, the type of poverty experienced by more than one billion human beings elsewhere on earth qualifies as absolute, by virtue of their lack of the most basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter. Singer proposes an analogous characterization of absolute affluence to describe the living conditions of the average person living in more developed societies. According to Singer, the living conditions of even the decidedly non-wealthy in the United States represents unimaginable wealth and luxury to the poor in Third-World nations.

Singer suggests that those of us fortunate enough to live in absolute affluence in societies where even the poor enjoy general good nutrition, health, and relative longevity owe an affirmative moral duty to provide more assistance to those enduring lives of absolute poverty in other parts of the world. He uses the analogy of the moral obligation to rescue a drowning child at little comparative cost to the rescuer and suggests that the same principle applies to addressing global poverty. Specifically, the argument is that a moral duty to intervene to save a stranger exists anytime the act of rescue can be accomplished without substantial cost to the rescuer. Therefore, while no moral duty necessarily exists to risk one's own life to save a child drowning in a semi-frozen lake after falling through the ice, a moral duty does apply to the act of simply wading into shallow water to do so, perhaps at the price of a ruined set of clothes or schedule. Singer applies that reasoning to the situation of global (absolute) poverty and outlines the four-step logical basis for the moral duty to intervene on the part of the (absolutely) affluent. First, one should be willing to make nominal sacrifices to prevent great harm to others; second, absolute poverty qualifies as "great harm"; and third, absolute poverty is preventable or rectifiable, at least to some degree, by our action. Therefore, we should do something to address absolute poverty.

Singer anticipates several specific logical objections to his conclusion: first, the argument that one has a moral duty to care for one's own before any comparable duty to care for remote strangers; second, that any automatic moral duty to assist strangers conflicts with fundamental notions of autonomous property rights; and third, that the logical basis of triage in the face of insufficient medical resources provides a more appropriate model for any moral duty owed by us to the absolute poor in the Third World. Similarly, Singer anticipates the lifeboat ethics analogy proposed by Garrett Hardin as well. The author summarily dispenses with the first argument, citing the arbitrary nature of sameness and its fundamental conflict with modern views of human rights. He overcomes the second argument mainly by conceding the distinction between the notion of conceptual moral duty and compelled moral duty; but he addresses the third argument by challenging its premise because its logic is more sound than any of the other potential objections. Further Consideration of the Issues:

Actually, Singer's use of the term absolute affluence is not perfectly analogous (because the corresponding analog to the conditions of absolute poverty are those of extravagant wealth not working class wealth), but the idea itself is still valid just the same. The point is simply that once human society in part of the world reached the point where even most of those considered "poor" receive adequate nutrition, shelter, and the most basic emergency medical care (etc.), a moral duty arises whereby helping the less fortunate should be more important than self-centered concerns about increasing one's wealth relative to others in the manner that different levels of affluence are defined in wealthier nations.

It is important that Singer acknowledges the difference between ideals that people should uphold and ideals that people must uphold, because it is likely impossible to establish a logical justification for compelled charity, regardless of the moral imperative.

In fact, U.S. law also recognizes that distinction as well. To use Singer's first example of the rescue of the drowning child, there is absolutely no legal duty to conduct any such rescue, provided that the non-rescuer is not related to or in charge of the child and had no part in causing the child to fall into the water in the first place. However, there certainly is a moral duty to assist the child whether or not that duty is enforceable at law.

Likewise, charity in the form of assisting the poor of other nations cannot be mandated. However, from an objective moral perspective, the situation is analogous to the individual faced with the obvious moral duty to intervene to prevent the child from drowning. Singer correctly points out that the lifeboat ethics theory is inapplicable simply because none of the assistance to Third-World nations at issue poses any threat to the welfare of more affluent nations. Similarly, the notion of caring for the poor of this country is specious on two different levels: first, by virtue of the faulty comparison between the relative poverty faced by First-World poor and the absolute poverty of Third-World poor; second, by unfounded a-priori assumption that similarity in race, skin color, ethnicity, or national origin is a valid determinant of whether charity is morally required.

Singer reserves his most detailed refutation for the anticipated argument that to provide assistance for starvation where overpopulation is a simultaneous concern only perpetuates the problem and increases its magnitude. The author acknowledges the logical soundness of the conclusion but challenges the premise that overpopulation today will necessarily continue at the same rate or increase after the receipt of aid from outside.