An Essay on American Materialism

the issue of poverty by suggesting Americans give away most of their income to aid those in need. Singer believes that withholding income is the equivalence of letting a child starve to death. Therefore, Singer suggests the ethical thing to do to end world hunger is to give up everyday luxuries. Although donating a vast amount of money could help dying and starving children, Singer’s proposition is not only unrealistic but also too demanding for everyday Americans who have responsibilities of their own.

The premises of Singer’s argument is as follows; The first “official” premise- “I begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad.” The second premise- “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything or comparable moral importance. Then we ought, morally, to do it.” Box 4 is the heart of Singer’s argument; “If it is in our power to prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral important. Then we ought, morally, to do it.” The conclusion of the argument is “… we ought to give money away [thereby acting to prevent further suffering due to lack of food, shelter and medical care], and it is not wrong to do so.

In this article, Singer argues that prosperous people should give all money not used on necessities to charity. This bold argument will either persuade or disinterest someone fully. There are many pros and cons of Singer’s argument.

In “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” by Peter Singer, Singer uses analogies and propaganda to defend his solution for world poverty. In the article, Singer parallels a story of a man choosing to save a car over saving a child with modern Americans choosing luxuries over donating money to save underprivileged children. He provides resources of organizations to help these children, and he continuously describes the problems with both materialism in American society and children who are dying preventable deaths. Singer’s solution is that individuals should simply give away any money that is not absolutely essential for basic necessities.

Singer’s main argument is built upon the “assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad” (231). It is the duty of the utilitarian to attempt to relieve this type of suffering. His standpoint is that people should attempt to prevent bad things from happening: “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it” (231). Singer contends that this is largely an uncontroversial principle since it only requires that people do not make undue sacrifices in order to promote the greater good. The example he gives to demonstrate his point is that of walking past a shallow pond and seeing a child drowning. To save the child, all that is required is for a person to get a little muddy or damp. For an immaterial sacrifice, something very bad is being prevented and therefore there should be no debate about a person’s actions.

Accepting the three premises seems to require us to reconsider the meaning of charity and duty. The obligation to give as much as we can becomes a matter of duty not charity. This upends the notion where charitable giving to those in need is praiseworthy, but failure is not to be condemned. By the force of Singer’s argument, failure to give is wrong because we must do everything in our power to direct every extra resource to those suffering from death and starvation. This changes our conception of giving from optional to obligatory. For example, it would wrong to buy a new shirt or enjoy a fine meal instead of giving to famine relief. Singer’s conclusion is simply This

The final and third counter-argument is that Singer question exactly how much we should be giving away. In this counter-argument, Singer talks of giving until one reaches marginal utility; or in the case where suffering would have greatly increased or decreased in his self, if he gave more than one can afford to give. One should avoid bad things from happening or sacrificing too much to help those in need. Giving until you reach your marginal utility is only required. “Singer believes we are obliged to give money away until our sacrifice is of comparable moral importance to the agony of people starving to death” (Specter, 1999). This is our duty to do so. An example

Peter Singer’s, the Solution to World Poverty is basically about if ever person in affluent nations donates money, they can save a kid’s life. It makes a few good points about the issue. One interesting point that was made is that people spend too much money on thing that they do not really need at all. He uses a story of a man named Bob, who choosing to save his Bugatti over a kid a letting the kid die as an example of what it’s like when people use their money. Although it would be nice if this was possible, but there are some major problems with this idea.

In the article, Singer gives different scenarios and aspects on giving to overseas charities. Both scenarios included people who put their needs before a child’s needs, but one made the right decision. In one of the scenarios, one person sacrificed a child that he did not know for his expensive new car. That explains the point that Singer was trying to make on American consumers spending more money on materialistics

Paul Churchland argues for eliminative materialism, that folk psychology must be completely eliminated and be replaced by neuroscience. He claim is much different than other philosophers that he disagrees with the idea that folk psychological explanations are reducible to any correct neuroscientific account. He claims that folk psychology is a theory that is fundamentally flawed due to a lack of explanatory power, with a bad historical trend of retreat and stagnation, and is not supportable with prominent physical sciences. Due to this Churchland believes that folk psychology should be eliminated and replaced with neuroscience.

In the introduction to Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter, Daniel Miller describes the book as part of the second stage of the development of material culture studies. The first stage was the recognition by writers such as Appadurai and Bourdieu as well as Miller that material culture is important and worthy of study. The second stage is the argument made in this book: that it is crucial to focus on "the diversity of material worlds" without reducing these material worlds to symbols for "real" social processes nor cloistering them in sub-studies of like objects. That things matter has already been ascertained; this books intends to investigate "why some things matter" more than others and in particular contexts.

Peter Signer, a utilitarian philosopher who wrote the essay “The Signer Solution to World Poverty” that was published on September 5th, 1999 in the New York Times Magazine. He is the co-founder of “The Life You Can Save” which is a nonprofit organization that its mission is to help people living in poverty. Singer says about himself, “Yet for a utilitarian philosopher like myself -- that is, one who judges whether acts are right or wrong by their consequences” (1), which shows the kind of person he is and that gives him credibility as well. In this essay, Singer gives his opinion on ways to end world poverty; he believes that Americans have a big impact on improving it. Singer is using pathos, ethos, and logos to persuade Americans to give away their money that is spent on their extravagant living to save children’s lives.

By providing a specific number, $200, Singer demonstrates how 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 helpless child. 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. By repeating this number multiple times, following with “to save a child’s life,” throughout his essay, Singer implies a rational yet urgent tone in order to convince the reader that if they donate, they will save a

Singer calculated that it would cost about $200 in donations to help a sickly child become healthier. While he realizes that not everyone has an extra $200 lying around, many people can save this money by not going out to eat for a month or not buying the newest gaming console. Singer is a utilitarian, which judges things as being right or wrong by their consequences. Because of this belief, any money spent not on necessities should be donated to help those in need. Not using your extra money to help those who need it is just as bad as selling a child

Peter Singer, a utilitarian philosopher who specializes in applied ethics, is known either as infamous or famous depending on one’s philosophy. Singer has spoken on a multitude of sensitive topics throughout his career drawing praise and controversy. Notably you can find Singer’s position on solving world poverty in his essay “The Solution to World Poverty”. In his essay, he attempts to persuade readers to follow his thought that it is immoral not to give all your excess wealth to penurious children. To a degree, he accomplishes his objective within the first half of his essay, using two hypothetical examples that appeal to emotion. However, Singer’s case falls short of completely selling his utilitarian philosophy, due to his disconnect with the reality of human nature.