Singer Solution Essay: The Good Life

As humans, one of the main goals we have is to be happy or to live “the good life.” The “good life” varies for each person but overall it is a life that is worth living based on both the view of the community and a person themselves. Some believe that a “good life” is a life that is lived morally to an extreme by sacrificing your all to make others happy, while others believe it is living selfishly and contentedly. However, it does not have to be a choice between being miserable and useless or immoral. These two extremes are not the only options and to live “the good life,” there is a middle ground where there is a moderate degree of both morally fulfilling social responsibilities to the community and being indulgent for a personal happiness. …show more content…
In The Singer Solution to World Poverty, Singer guilts the audience for excessively spending when that money could be used to save a child's life, to the extent of donating everything but the necessities to live (Singer 372). This logic takes self sacrifice to an unreasonable extreme where it would not be possible to live a morally decent life but also a content life at the same time because there will always be more children to save and more ways that you feel obligated to help. On the other end, is extreme selfishness shown by Hardin who argues that because equality is impossible, we must preserve resources for ourselves to save the world from “environmental ruin” (Hardin 368) This flaw in this is acknowledged the fact that there are other people's out in the community suffering but we shouldn’t attempt to help because it is for our own survival. This weighs heavily on the conscience, making it difficult to enjoy things that bring joy or as Russell claims, a feeling of inclusiveness with the community (Russell 364). Both Singer’s and Hardin’s arguments are extremes at opposite ends and a “good life” is somewhere in