Mill Utilitarian Ethics

Peter Singer defends that we “ought to prevent evil whenever we can do so without sacrificing something of comparable moral significance (Famine Relief and the Ideal Moral Code pg. 813)”. He believes that we should donate at least half of our earnings to people in absolute poverty, which in this case means poverty by any standard. He also says we should help out people in other countries before we help out our own neighbor. “The fact that a person is physically near to us, so that we have

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.

Utilitarianism’s believe in that only the outcomes matter when it comes to decisions and morality, however, those outcomes can also be questioned. Mill forms the framework of utilitarianism by discussing it in a way that makes assumptions; these objections can also be questioned against also.

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.

We all heard countless solutions on how to solve world poverty. In Peter Singer’s article “Rich and Poor”, he discusses how he thinks this problem can be fixed. Singer claims that we all have a responsibility to support people who are in extreme need and are suffering from absolute poverty. Singer believes that poverty could be fixed if people give up their luxuries and give the money that they spent on unnecessary things to those who are destitute. In Singer 's mind, we all have a duty to give until we are no longer able to, or until the problem with the world poverty will be solved. Singer feels that it is necessary for people who are more wealthy to help those who are less fortunate by donating money right away to organizations that help fight poverty. In his opinion, by not helping those in need we are negatively responsible for their suffering and thus failing to live a moral life.

“That persons with very low incomes may merit our sympathy is accepted, but sympathy leads to charity, rather than to the involuntary exploitation of the better off” (Narveson, 2004). Singer also says that people with a maintainable amount of wealth should give more than the X amount asked for, being that the predicament that some are not able to give or they can give less than the amount asked for. “Another, more serious reason for not giving to famine relief funds is that until there is effective population control, relieving famine merely postpone starvation” (Singer, 1972).

Poverty is a result of absence of basic needs; food, shelter and medical care. If we are in a position to help an individual who is suffering, without sacrificing anything of moral importance we should help the individual. Singer used the child drowning on shallow pond story to illustrate his viewpoint. Many individuals have criticized the simplistic nature of the example and it’s discussed towards the end of the paper.

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

From this basis he then goes on to argue that “If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so”. He shows this clearly with an analogy about a dying child in the following quote. “If I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull this child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of a child would presumably be a very bad thing.” This quote puts in very simple terms what is a very complex argument when applied something as broad as poverty. His position on this matter is also illustrated through the following quote, “If you are living comfortably while others are hungry or dying from easily preventable diseases, and you are doing nothing about it, there is something wrong with your behaviour.” Clearly in this quote Singer takes a strong view about people in developed countries helping those in developing countries. Singer also shows these views by expressing his thoughts on easily preventable

Why we are Obligated to Help the Less Fortunate? From the book The Life You Can Save written by Peter Singer, he addressed that poverty is one of the biggest problem that most of the world faced today. Singer defined poverty as shortage of food for all of a year, do not have saving, do not afford education, do not live in stable house, and do not have safe source of drinking water (5-6). This can lead to the death of children.

What would you do if you had to constantly think about how you were going to eat or take a shower or find clean water to drink? This is the daily struggle those people in underdeveloped countries face. So, what can we do about this? Peter Singer offered an argument for the moral obligations we have to others. He argued that there is nothing that is preventing us from performing our duty to individuals that are dying from malnutrition and disease. According to Singer, each of us can all afford to save a starving child by budgeting a little. Simply spending the appropriate amount of money it takes to meet our basic needs and donating the rest can make a tremendous impact on the life of each starving child in another country. Singer suggests that we can opt for a less expensive lifestyle that is unnecessary and then the rest of the money can be donated. Many people try to argue that they cannot afford to donate, but in reality, we all have more than we actually need and we are all capable of donating a portion of our earnings. Any excuse or objection someone tries to come up with can be proven to be untrue by applying Singer’s

Singer claims people in affluent societies are acting immorally in their response to world poverty. From his perspective, we are in a position to prevent something bad from happening at little cost to ourselves. So our actions, rather than promoting good are preventing an unnecessary evil. Thus donating to prevent famine is a duty, not a charity, and we are required give to the point of marginal utility. I hold, Singer’s approach is not the correct course of action as it would impinge upon the autonomy of individuals such as their ability to advance themselves and result in unintended damaging repercussions. I will now elaborate on Singer’s argument.

After reading Peter Singer’s article “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” I concluded that Singer’s solution is not adequate enough to accomplish the end of world poverty or the benefit of sick children. While multiple positive possibilities for his simple formula of “whatever money you’re spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away” (22) several negative complications with his solution are also present. If Singer’s solution was followed by every standard, he had set it would help children in poverty which is advocated by the fact that it only takes “$200 in donations would help a sickly two-year-old transform into a healthy six-year-old” (8). Unfortunately, it is against human nature to give vast amounts of money to others

Utilitarianism is a normative ethical theory that holds the morally right course of action in any given situation is the course of which yields the greatest balance of benefits over harms. More specifically, utilitarianism’s core idea is that the effects of an action determine whether actions are morally right or wrong. Created with the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873), Utilitarianism began in England in the 19th Century. Bentham and Mill built their system of Utilitarianism on ancient hedonism (pursuing physical pleasure and avoiding physical pain). Although both of these philosophers agreed on the basic principals of Utilitarianism they disagreed on what exactly hedonism is.

While studying the theory of Utilitarianism, we have briefly discussed both Mill's and Bentham’s ideas of the perfect Utilitarian person would would be. They both have very common ground but both branch off into their own ideas. Bentham’s ideas include a scale of measuring how much happiness can be measured. He believes that this scale can be changed from person to person based on their interests and how much happiness can be incorporated from certain activities. Whereas, Mill believes that certain activities can not measure the amount of happiness such as the birth of a child, freedom, etc. I believe that both points are very valid and in general I feel that a true Unitarism would believe a little of both points. I feel that in most activities, an individual can “measure” how much happiness an individual would have and that scale fluctuates based on the individual. However, I feel that certain activities for some people cannot be measured. In general human beings need to have love, support and activities that they enjoy doing to be happy. So I