Essay on Discussing the Obligation to Help the Absolutely Poor

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.

Everyone should have the right to live a stable life with all the necessary essentials, which include food, shelter, and medical care. Unfortunately, not every individual in our world has access to either one or all of these essential life elements. In Peter Singer’s essay, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, Singer emphasizes the importance of giving back to those who are less fortunate. Singer in particular claims that those who are affluent individuals should feel morally obligated to donate to humanitarian causes.

Peter Singer’s central idea focuses around how grim death and suffering from lack of food, shelter and medical care really is. He further argues that if we can prevent something this unfortunate from happening, without sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought to do it. In other words, as privileged citizens, we ought to prevent all of the death and suffering that we can from lack of food, shelter and medical care from happening by giving our money and resources to charity (Chao, 2016, in-class discussion). In the terms of this argument, death and suffering from poverty are preventable with the

In the first article, “The Obligation to Assist”, Singer believes if we as a society or as individuals can prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing something of comparable moral significance, we should always do it. He uses a metaphor to put his position into words, he explains that if he were to see a child drowning he has a moral conscious to help the child, but would he have the obligation? Relating to his metaphor, he applies this concept to people living in poverty. People continue to live in absolute poverty, although, if society lived by the aforementioned principle people would assist the poor, as poverty is bad. Therefore, we should prevent at least some poverty. Through this theory, implications can be drawn out from

The most powerful effective stance Singer conveys is an appeal to a wide range of views. Singer's view on our moral obligation to help the world's poor is naturally direct and stands on the two premises: if we can prevent something bad without sacrificing something of comparable significance we ought to do it, and that extreme poverty throughout the world is bad (Taylor, 2009). He continues to use his pathos argument in the heart of helping our fellow man is the right thing to do (Wilhoit,

In Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, he describes how he believes everyone’s approach to global poverty should be. He starts by describing how people in many places in the world are dying from hunger, having no shelter or access to medical care. Other people have the ability to stop this from happening if they make the right decisions. He compares Britain’s use of money, using three times more for certain projects than they’ve used to give to the needy, which he says shows they care more about these projects than those lives. He then says that he’s going to argue why this is wrong, and how affluent countries should be using their money and why. First he says that dying from starvation or lack of food is bad, a premise we should all accept for one reason or another. His next point is that if we have the power to prevent something bad without sacrificing something of equal or greater value, then we have the moral obligation to do it. He compares this to a child drowning in a pond, you have the obligation to go and pull the child out of the pond and help them, your clothes will get wet and dirty, but this is insignificant compared to the child’s death. He then

Peter Singer (Famine, Affluence, and Morality 231) stated his essay’s main argument that “If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought, morally, to do it.” Singer continued to elaborate his argument by proposing two principles. The first principle, which is the more demanding principle, argues that if a person has the capability to “make something good happen without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance” then he is morally obligated to give or help (231). Like said, Peter Singer’s argument that affluent individuals are morally obligated to give aid is extremely demanding. He suggests that people should stop spending money on things they want. Rather, give it to those people who are dying from starvation (Singer 235). However, Henry Sidgwick (The Methods of Ethics 382) stated that a person’s welfare is no more than important than other person’s welfare and thus vice versa. This simply implies that the welfare of an affluent person who chooses to buy new clothes to make himself look good has the same importance compared to the welfare of a starving child in

, 2010)” Singer believes that we have the power to help people and that we should donate all of our money that we do not need, but he says that it “is not a charitable act” but more “a fundamental duty which we are morally bound to fulfil. Moreover, the amount of money we should give is significant: even acting on the qualified argument would mean giving substantial amounts of our money away (Cottingham, 1986) (Hardin, 1974).” Singers’ arguments are of a Utilitarian View, he wants the most happiness for the most people. Giving your power and money to those who do not have it will bring more happiness to more people in this world. In his second argument Singer states that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care is bad. We take these basic needs for granted. Singer has said that he will not argue this view. Singer says that if we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of even more moral importance, we are morally obliged to (Soderburg, n.d.). When people are suffering and not even getting the basic necessities needed for a decent quality of life. Singer argues that all people should be on the same level, in

Recent research conducted by the University of Florida concluded that American poverty can be effectively eradicated by throwing every poor person into a gaping, massive chasm. "The idea is simple really. All we have to do is load up all of the 45 million Americans living at or below the poverty line onto dump trucks and splash! It's over," said Dr. Lycanborough, director of the project. "We just need a big fucking hole." The plan calls for rounding up "every one of the impoverished useless bastards" and offloading them in a hole of unspecified size and location. "The main point is to cut the fat from the American economy. The single mom working four jobs to keep her children fed, the dad who has been unemployed for a year who wants to improve his children's quality of life, etc. You know, the dregs of our society," stated Dr. Furshentien, a collaborator and principal researcher behind the data.

Poverty is the most social problem in the United States for many reasons. A lot more people in today’s time are living below the poverty line. Those who do require safety net programs are at-risk of those programs being cut off as well. Some people lack compassion and say bad choices are the reason why they are homeless but as the saying goes we are all only one paycheck away. We live in the wealthiest country in the world and yet so many of our families go to bed hungry every day. Countless people who are living on the streets refuse to even go into homeless shelters. Most of the shelters are in desperate need of repair themselves. Broken toilets, mold and rats just to name a few of the problems. Along with safety concerns such as Rape and robberies in the

Peter Singer, a prominent moral philosopher and public intellectual, has written at length about many ethical issues. He subscribes to utilitarianism, which is the position that the best moral action is that which maximizes the well-being of conscious entities; this view is made apparent through his writings. In his essay What Should a Billionaire Give—and What Should You? Singer presents the idea that although the rich are capable of mitigating extreme poverty, there has been little improvement for the poorest 10 percent of the world’s population. He maintains that all life is equal and, therefore, saving the lives of the poor is a moral imperative for those who can afford to. “We are far from acting in accordance to that belief,”

People in the rich nations have major obligations of extending a helping hand to the poor countries preventing deaths from happening without necessarily sacrificing anything. The rich nations tend to reside in comfort while the poor countries continue to witness countless deaths as a result of deteriorating economic conditions. As depicted by Peter Singer the people in the rich nations have specific obligations of helping people in the poor countries. The argument is founded on the basic concept of helping and sharing in the society towards attaining a common good. The principle that he appeals to is that of “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we

Singer believes that we have a global obligation to help the global poor and have a moral obligation to give to charity. Since it is a moral obligation to give to charity according to Singer, people should not be praised for doing it, rather only shame the people that do not. Singer uses the idea of relative and absolute affluence and poverty in his argument aswell. Relative poverty is the condition of being poor based on the people that have more than you and relative affluence is the condition of being rich based on the people under you. Absolute poverty is a universal level of poverty that are unacceptable by all standards while relative affluence is being in a condition when basic necessities are met, and then some (Singer). Singer goes

Perhaps Brent is Mary’s neighbor who has been stealing her disability check from her mailbox each month. Or perhaps Brent and Mary where both applying for the same job, and, on the day of the decisive interview, Brent (wearing a balaclava of course) broke into Mary’s house and, holding Mary at gun point, demanded that she withdraw her job application. Whatever the specifics, it is clear that Brent has directly and maliciously interfered with Mary’s life and that his holdings are an obvious result of this direct and malicious interference. If this is so, then redistribution is undoubtedly warranted, according to both Robert Nozick’s entitlement theory and John Rawls’ theory of justice. Applying Nozick’s entitlement theory to this scenario demonstrates that this distribution is not just because it did not arise through legitimate means. The transfer of holdings from Mary to Brent is not a voluntary exchange, nor is it a gift. If Brent is stealing Mary’s disability check, then this is a clear violation of the principle of justice in transfer. Likewise, “forcibly [excluding Mary] from competing in exchanges,” through violently demanding that she withdraw her job application also violates this principle. Furthermore, it is needless to say that applying Rawls’ theory of justice would also result in redistribution, as no one in the original position would want to be poor exploited Mary, and stealing from and threatening Mary certainly does not leave her better off, so the difference principle can not be

Robert Nozick’s Principle of Rectification as a Proposal for Dealing with Historical Injustice Name Institution Introduction Robert Nozick’s principle of rectification, a proposal to address historical injustices bases arguments and on the first two principles of property entitlement and the process of acquiring or transferring the ownership (Nozick, 2013). The principle of rectification implies that the history of distribution of properties or goods can be traced to have been unjust or not depending on the means of making such distributions. In the case that the goods were acquired legitimately, then the distribution is just, while when the acquisition process is illegitimate, then it is unjust. The rectification principle, therefore, comes