Peter Singer Famine Summary

Peter Singer wrote his work Famine, Affluence and Morality, which covered his thoughts on how we should treat those starving in poverty stricken countries. It argues that affluent individuals and countries are morally obligated to donate far-more resources to humanitarian causes than is considered normal in Western cultures. The essay was inspired by the starvation of Bangladesh’s Liberation War refugees and he uses their situation as an example to make the point that affluent countries are obligated to assist these countries in providing aid. Although Singer's argument is general in scope and not limited to the example of Bangladesh. Furthermore, living in one of the most affluent nations in the midst of widespread poverty throughout many parts of the world creates an interesting moral issue.
The central arguments of his essay is that, if one can use their own wealth to reduce suffering. For example, by aiding famine-relief efforts without any significant reduction in the wellbeing of oneself or others, it is immoral not to do so. According to Singer, such apathy is clearly immoral if a child is drowning in a shallow pond and someone can save it but chooses not to; nor does placing greater …show more content…
One of his strongest arguments against Peter Singer’s points is the notion of negative and positive rights; positive rights are beings with rights of recipients, and negative rights being those of noninterference. While Singer sees the act of not helping those in need with financial assistance as morally wrong, Arthur would argue that this is a positive rights issue because there is no contract between ourselves and individuals who are in need. Therefore, people are entitled to invoke their own rights as a justification for not giving to those in