Singer Famine Analysis

Since the mid of twentieth century, the rapid development of scientific technologies has promoted the world economy to increase largely so as to fasten the process of globalization. However, as the global connection has become increasingly intimate, there is a range of global problems such as famine and poverty. While many ethists have studied these problems by holding different arguments, Singer is the one whose point of view respecting to the question whether or not we have the duty to help the victims of famine and poverty in some distant poor countries is the most representative and controversial as well. In fact, Singer’s ethical principle is based on general utilitarianism and even distribution of benefits. Firstly, he synthesizes both …show more content…
Therefore, the first major premise Singer pointed out is that “suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad” (Singer, 696). Obviously, this premise will definitely not to be controversial for any reason since it is apparently delivering a truth that somethings, such as death of life worth living, suffering from the pain, hunger, would definitely be bad for the agent who is experiencing. Like the example of shallow pond Singer mentions, the thing that the child is drowning into the pond should be bad since the child is really suffering from the pain of hardly breathing in the water. So does the case of famine in the poor countries, the people who are suffering the pain from death due to the lack of enough food are as bad as the child who is struggling in the water. In addition, the second premise is that “if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it”(Singer, 696). This premise has been the one that supports firmly the central argument. However, Singer thinks that this premise is still not supposed to be doubted since that should be accepted by people holding different ethical instances. In other words, this premise should be accepted not only by utilitarians who emphasize consequentialism since it is …show more content…
One of them is that “there are certain rights which all men share equally, including life and liberty. We are entitled to pursue our own lives with a minimum of interference from others, and no person is the natural slave of another”(Arthur,706). In this argument, what Arthur is trying to say is that we should not be morally forced to give any of our own property including the money to others if that is not in our intention to do so since we have the right to choose how we use them. However, there are some problems in this argument even though it seems to be sensible at first glance. To demonstrate, the problem is originated from the imbalance of importance between the right for properties and equality principle. In other ways, it is by no means sensible to say that applying the idea of importance of controlling individual properties emphasizing by egoists into every field of social life is more prior to not establishing a society in which the unevenly polarized distribution of wealth will happen if people are not going to help each other. In addition, Arthur also points out another argument relating to the desert in an effort to fight against Singer’s point. In the example that “an industrious farmer manages through hard work to produce a surplus of food for the winter while a lazy neighbor spends his summer