Famine, Affluence, Morality Peter Singer's Principle Goal

Famine, Affluence, Morality Peter Singer's principle goal of "Famine, Affluence and Morality" is to get members of society to alter their contemporary conceptions of morality. His primary means of achieving this goal is to get people to rethink the notion of giving charity to those in need. He utilizes the 1971 destitution of people in Bengal as a case study in which he urges the affluent to change their view of morality so that they donate money and time to help the indigent.

The author's assumption is that by getting people to understand the moral obligation in helping those in need, such as those in Bengali who have been ravaged by "Constant poverty, a cyclone, and civil war" (Singer, 1971, p.229), he will effectively change the way people consider moral situations. This change in their thinking will then influence their propensity for aiding other people in other situations outside of Bengal, and will supposedly make the world a better place in which wealth serves more utility than the facilitation of luxury.

Essentially, then, Singer is advocating that people use their wealth to support and aid others, so long as in doing so they are not doing anything else bad or failing to support themselves and their families. The author takes the liberty of posing a number of counterarguments to his viewpoint and readily disproving them all. The Bengali case study takes prominence in nearly all of his counterarguments. For instance, one such counterargument contends that distance is a factor in deciding who should provide monetary aid and how.

Yet Singer readily disputes this contention by positing that, from a moral perspective, distance does not matter. The only thing that matters (morally) is saving lives, whether such lives are across the street or located near India. The author believes that it is not morally defensible to waste money on matters of luxury when that same money could provide food to starving people regardless of where such people are located.

Another common counterargument for the reinforced sense of morality that Singer offers is that the number of people who are willing to help negates individual responsibility. This type of logic adheres to the fact that if someone were hit by a car in the middle of Times Square, with hundreds or thousands of people watching there is less personal responsibility for people individually.

However, the author dispels this notion by stating that "the fact that there are millions of other people in the same position…does not make the situation significantly different from a situation in which I am the only person" (232) who can help someone. This concept readily ties into the author's point about marginal utility. Marginal utility is the concept that giving a considerable amount of aid may negate a person's ability to take care of himself and his family.

It can be used to dispute "any utilitarian or consequentialist ethic" (singer, 1991, p. 625). There is little use in an action that is part of marginal utility. People tend to think that if they give more than the next person they are coming closer to marginal utility and are effectively draining their own resources, which is why when there are a large number of people offering monetary assistance some do not want to give more than others.

Another counterargument the author offers is that his proposed alteration for ideas of charity and duty are "too drastic" (236). The author's proposed revision of those ideas is that charity should be more of an obligation or a duty for those who are affluent, instead of something that is optional and is deemed a good work. Essentially, he believes that what the rich consider charity and optional should be their duty and mandatory.

Some may consider this viewpoint too radical or too different from contemporary notions of these terms in a given society -- which is primarily concerned with the needs of its society before the needs of others. Singer, however, counters this counterargument by positing the fact that "The moral point-of-view requires us to look beyond the interests of our own society" (237 on mine). I fully support Singer's position, particularly his revised conception of charity and duty.

Those with more money should be obligated to use it in a way that is beneficial to mankind in general, since this is "one of the most important issues of our time" (Singer, 2007, p.475). One should not adopt an 'us or them' capitalist attitude in which people need to be destitute in order for someone to be affluence. There are a number of logical way in which this viewpoint can be supported. Escalating tax measures are one way in which Singer's ideal can be actualized.

Those with higher incomes should pay more in taxes. It makes no sense to attempt to extract money from those who do not have it, or to excessively charge poorer.