Analysis Of Peter Singer's Article 'What Should A Billionaire Give'

What is a human life worth? Some may say it is worth millions of dollars no matter what. Others might argue that a human’s worth is dependant on who they are, where they came from and what they can do. In Peter Singer’s Article “What Should a Billionaire Give?” he states that many people would be reluctant to even consider putting a fixed rate. It would be unethical to do so, however, he continues with “If we really had to, most of us would agree that the value of human life would be in the millions.” Throughout his essay he argues that young human life is being wasted away, killed off in droves, at the cost of our modern standards of living. He talks about how much ought to be given by the same people who created these standards of living …show more content…
Finally there will be a answer to the question of if capitalism is in part to blame for these circumstances or if it is the solution.
In Singer’s article he outlines that in order to reach the goal of enough money being donated and then used properly to counterbalance the poverty experienced in many regions to a point where death of children is to be solved, it would take more money than even billionaires have. Referring to statistics published by economists from UC Berkeley, you could divide the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers into five different brackets, to which plausible donations could be adjusted according to their income that would solve global poverty. Is this fair though? To require a nation’s free people to give up their money that they earned themselves in order to better or save the lives of people they have not or will ever meet? On one side of the coin you have the argument that they earned their money …show more content…
Does that have any meaning, though, if the end result - people’s lives being saved - is the same? Like mentioned prior, some of the people in the world have no other option. Whether it is a morally correct thing for one to donate when considering their motives, is not something that would cross the minds of those who are living in extreme poverty where those around them are dying and they are simply waiting their turn. Singer states that philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are donating large sums of money towards solutions to global poverty, not due to motivations of personal divine salvation, but rather more likely out of a sense of duty. So the motivations of those who donate should simply be to better the state of his fellow man, but as well as if there were a government mandated requirement to donate then that would remove the question of if it 's their personal motives or not out of the question