What Billionaires And What You Should Give By Peter Singer

In a piece by Peter Singer entitled, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Singer argues that Americans should prevent atrocious situations to arise but, we also should not sacrifice something of equal importance while doing so. Moreover, in the piece by John Arthur, “World Hunger and Moral Obligation: The Case Against Singer,” Arthur disagrees with Singer; he believes that we should help the poverty-stricken but, it is not morally imperative to do so.

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.

Peter Singer's persuasive essay strips us bare of our selfish wants as he equates our tendency to accumulate all the stuff we don’t need with ignoring the plight of drowning children and, as such, being responsible for the death of those children. We are, Singer convincingly argues, products of our fortunate “social capital”; therefore, we have an obligation to those who do not have a social capital.

In “What Should a Billionaire Give?” Peter Singer makes some good points, however, I disagree that “the United States should contribute more than 36 percent of total global donations” (p.588). I agree that the wealthy or those in a position to give or assist the less fortunate should do so. I also believe that it should be their choice, not for the purposes of easing a guilty conscience or for public notoriety. If wealthy Americans were mandated to make contributions to relieve poverty, that should be optional and secondary to eliminating poverty in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, nearly 565,000 people were homeless in the United States in 2015! I am not suggesting that we shouldn’t assist or contribute to global efforts to end poverty. We can contribute a lower percentage while investing a percentage in improving our economy. A wealthy nation will have a better impact on global efforts as opposed to a few wealthy individuals.

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.

This paper explores Peter Singer’s argument, in Famine, Affluence, and Morality, that we have morally required obligations to those in need. The explanation of his argument and conclusion, if accepted, would dictate changes to our lifestyle as well as our conceptions of duty and charity, and would be particularly demanding of the affluent. In response to the central case presented by Singer, John Kekes offers his version, which he labels the and points out some objections. Revisions of the principle provide some response to the objections, but raise additional problems. Yet, in the end, the revisions provide support for Singer’s basic argument that, in some way, we ought to help those in need.

In Peter Singer’s essay “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”, published on September 5th, 1999 in The New York Times Magazine, Singer claims that the solution to world poverty is for Americans to donate excess income to aid organizations. His article consists of a gathering of exaggerated situations which he uses to engage readers, while also adequately supporting an argument of moral duty by comparing the hypothetical scenarios to Americans who do not donate. Singer exhibits an appeal to pathos to a substantial amount throughout his article. The provided situations set an outline for the reader to feel certain, appealing emotions.

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.

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 contrast, “If we value the life of a child more than going to fancy restaurants, the next time we dine out we will know that we could have done something better with our money” (Singer par. 23). Let’s say it costs eighty dollars to take your family out to dinner at a nice restaurant. Those eighty dollars could be used to feed, cloth, and ultimately save a starving child. Instead, that family decided to go out to eat even though they had perfectly good food at home. Think about how often this occurs and how many lives that could be saved if they donate that money instead.

In “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”, Peter Singer advocates that those who are wealthy should donate their money not spent on basic necessities to help those in need overseas. The statement he argues for has beneficial outcomes such as providing better lives that can lead to a more stable society and doing so will display good morals. However, this opposes the idea of the “American Dream” as those in poverty can take advantage of those who are wealthier. Overall, the benefits outweigh the complications in urging the rich to donate overseas instead of spending money on luxury items.

In “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” Singer argues that all households should donate a percentage of their incomes to charity. Majority of the American population is satisfied with donating little to nothing to those in need, but seldom rethink the purchase of the luxury items. It is a commonly accepted fact that those who work for their earnings are deserving of the monies that they receive. Unfortunately, those in third world countries that don’t have the same resources and opportunities are unable to sustain their livelihood. Some children in third world countries suffer from deprivation of food and shelter; while those that are fortunate enough to have jobs are paid only cents a day. (“Some H-1B Workers Underpaid, Federal

In his article Rich and Poor, Peter Singer argues that we have a moral obligation to give assistance to people in absolute poverty. He derived this conclusion from three premises. The first states that if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then we ought to it. The second premise is that absolute poverty is a bad thing. The third premise is that we are able to alleviate some portion of absolute poverty without giving up anything of comparable moral significance. To illustrate the urgency of our duty to assist the poor, he believes that in a case where we happen to walk pass a child drowning in a shallow pond, the vast majority of people would agree that it would be seriously morally wrong to not rescue the child. Connecting this scenario to Singer’s argument, we can say it is seriously morally wrong to not assist the poor because the lives of these people in need are of greater moral importance than the excess income we would otherwise spend on luxury goods. Thus, Singer is correct in saying that we have a moral obligation to assist the poor, and that failing to do so is equally as morally wrong as failing to rescue the drowning child.

In the article Rich and Poor, Peter Singer sees extreme poverty as “not having enough income to meet the most basic human needs for adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health care or education” (pg. 234). Singer does not fail to compare those in extreme poverty to people who are living in absolute affluence. He suggests that it is the responsibility of those living in affluence to help those who are in need of obtaining even the basic human needs. He also argues that the affluent not helping is the moral equivalency of murder. Singer realizes that even though the rich can give to the poor these resources that they need, the rich do not feel enough of a moral mandate to do so. I disagree a bit with Singer because he seems to suggest that everyone who has the basic necessities is morally obligated to give but, I believe that this idea of a moral mandate to give should only apply to the extremely wealthy. Like Singer’s first premises says “If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.” (243) If the absolute affluent have large amounts of money, they can help to at least make people live comfortably without losing anything of great significance. The increasing poverty rates, not just in America but, globally cannot be solved if the extremely wealthy continue to do wasteful spending and choose to not put their money more towards programs and charities that better the lives of the people in their

there is one thing common among all these billionaires that is all of them donate to charities, which is a good thing but did you ever think that what would it be if one of those poor people whom this charity money goes to is Steve jobs or Bill gates. We cant imagine that because if you go ask them personally would you live a life like those poor people in Africa? Or something like that they will say no we won’t. Why is it that they said no, is it because they are inhuman no its just that none of us want to live poor. All of us want to be rich and we do what it takes to get