Peter Singer's 'Famine, Affluence, And Morality'
Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher who applies ethics to many controversial issues. One of these issues was discussed in his piece of writing titled, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” Singer proposes a fair and strong assumption concerning his argument that, “suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad…” but stretches his assumptions too much when demanding that, “it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening…”, and that we, “ought morally to do so.”
As far as assumptions go I believe that Singer hit his first one right on the head of the nail. Singer tells the readers that these issues of lack of supplies is a terrible thing in the world and frankly you would have to have some guts to
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Singer wants the reader to feel as though if it is in their power to prevent even one person from suffering then we must do so without basically any consideration. This means that as a working citizen you should work day to day, buy the items needed for you to survive, and then send the rest of your paycheck off to another individual. Why is this is a problem? Expenses are not planned. We may have extra money at the time but when you get a flat on the side of the road, or need to go to the doctors to get an x-ray, where are you going to take this money from now that it is gone? Not to mention that this would mean that even college students should be doing this with their weekly paychecks, but what are we expected to do when we begin our lives thousands of dollars in debt because we now have used our every last penny out of so called moral obligation. Singer’s assumption is just too extreme that we must do everything possible to prevent others from being poor. Personally I believe this argument is hands down wrong. As a human living in an ever-changing world we have to constantly be prepared for the worst. We have to be putting our every extra penny into savings accounts for any mishap that may happen. Singer proposes an argument that should be hard for any working low or middle class citizen to accept. It is possible that high class citizens would partially accept this idea and donate a portion of their paycheck to those in poverty but never their total extra
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