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A Defense Of Peter Singer 's Famine Relief Argument

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Yaoxian Qu
Chad Vance
Introduction to Philosophy
12/04/2014
A Defense of Peter Singer’s Famine Relief Argument In his paper ‘Famine affluence and morality’, Peter Singer sought to provide response to a significant moral question: Is it morally permissible to not donate to famine? Singer argued that we are morally obligated to famine relief. I am deeply convinced by his argument. In this paper, I shall examine two significant objections to singer’s argument and explain why they would ultimately fail. Singer’s original argument takes the following form:
(P1) Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad
(P2) If we can prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then we are morally obligated to do so.
(P3) Death caused by famine is something bad that happens that we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance (namely, by donating to famine relief).
(C) Therefore, we ought to donate to famine relief. Singer assumed premise 1 to be undoubtedly true, which is manifested by his statement: “It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to refute such positions, and so for brevity I will henceforth take this assumption as accepted.”(Singer, 2) Those who disagree need read no further. “ To support the second premise of his argument, he provided the following situation:

Shallow Pond: Imagine that you are going to work. On your way to work, you see a child drowning in a pond.

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