Singer's arguments on famine, affluence, and moral obligation

¶ … Famine, Affluence, Morality," Peter Singer, discuss: a. Explain Singer's goal article, present Singer's argument supports position. b. Explain counter-arguments Singer's position addresses article, summarize Singer's responses counter-arguments.

"Famine, affluence, and morality" by Peter Singer

In his essay "Famine, affluence, and morality," Peter Singer asks why the major industrial nations of the world fail to act in assisting poorer and destitute nations, despite the fact they have enough resources to do so. Singer argues that it is just as immoral for a First World nation to refuse to offer aid to a nation in the developing world as it is to refuse to save a child from drowning in a shallow pond if the personal risks and costs to the individual are nil other than getting one's clothes dirty. The reasons we do not aid these countries is because they subjectively seem very far away, even though real children are dying (Singer 1972: 231-232). There is no inherent moral difference between a neighborhood child and a Bengali child other than our irrational horror at the prospect of one dying in light of our relative indifference to the other. Singer's goal in writing his essay is a very practical one: to actively encourage his readers to engage in charitable gift-giving on a level they might consider good but not 'necessary' in the past.

Singer argues that the idea that because 'everyone else' is not necessarily giving is not valid, given that no one would say it is moral to point to someone else standing near the child, refusing to give assistance and use that to validate his or her own inaction. In fact, Singer argues that there is a moral obligation for every single citizen to give a bit more than the minimum required to save a child from dying, given the likelihood that not everyone will give the necessary sum to do so. The argument that more than enough may be given by all total donors does not hold water given that the overall cost of not giving is so much greater to the aggregate number of individuals than the cost of giving is to the total population.

Singer thus argues that there is a duty to give charity, in contrast to conventional moral statements that there is not and charity is merely a kind of bonus. Singer even goes so far to state that anything purchased that is not a necessity -- for example, fashionable clothing -- is immoral, given that it could go to famine relief (Singer 1972: 236). Regarding the objection is that this is too radical an envisioning of our current moral schema, Singer argues that there cannot be a divide between what is moral and what is exceptionally praiseworthy. "If the stakes are an end to widespread starvation, it is worth the risks" (Singer 1972: 238). The second obligation is that few will act in such a moral manner, to which Singer replies: "since most people are self-interested to some degree, very few of us are likely to do everything we ought to do" but that is not an argument that we should not do it (Singer 1972: 238). And to the idea that his concepts are so out of line "something must have gone wrong somewhere," Singer invokes the philosopher Thomas Aquinas, who said "whatever a man has in superabundance is owed, of natural right, to the poor for their sustenance" (Singer 1972: 239). Finally, regarding the argument that giving privately will merely cause governments to give less does not hold water given that massive withholdings of charity are unlikely to unleash government abundance -- that is hardly the only reason governments fail to give aid (Singer 1972: 239).

In answer to the question of how much we should give, Singer states that we should give to our level of marginal utility or to the extent which I would cause as much suffering to myself as I would relieve by giving the gift of my charity (Singer 1972: 241). For example, someone who is a cancer patient and needs the money to spend on his or her treatment would not be morally obliged to put that treatment on hold to donate. However, someone who did have 'spare' money if they did not get a takeout pizza one night and instead ate rice and beans for dinner would have an obligation to donate the difference to charity, since technically they could still be nutritionally sustained by that less palatable meal.

In Singer's world, charity is a duty. This is contrary to how charity is usually thought of: we think of our duties as moral obligations we must perform either in a positive sense, like taking care of our own children or in a negative sense like not harming others. Charity is 'extra' giving to those to whom we are not necessarily obligated. Singer sees our obligations as universal and draws no distinction between neighbors, friends, family, and people who live far away.