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Responding To Singer On Individuality Summary

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Responding to Singer: On Individualism and Pragmatics
Michael Anderson Soh Sheng Rong
Matriculation number: U1731581B
22 September 2017
Words: 1917
This paper is written as a response to Singer’s “Famine, Affluence and Morality”. Singer poses what he deems a moral obligation to mankind. That is, we are not just responsible for our personal good and are instead obligated to intervene to rescue others from suffering if we possess the capability to do so. His argument enforces a criterion of forced action that demands the individual takes action, putting forth the claim that apathy when we have the ability to resolve others of misery is immoral. In the first segment of the paper, I attempt to offer a comprehensive explanation of Singer’s view, …show more content…

From Singer’s perspective, it is irrelevant if someone’s suffering is physically distant from us. However, there are reasons why we place higher value on relationships that are closer to us. The wellbeing of those who we have forged meaningful relationships with have a tendency to outweigh the wellbeing of strangers. This is not just a callous social construct. As human beings, there are a finite number of issues that our mind can conceptualise at any point in time. In fact, this number should be quite small. There is a reason why we are more likely to concern ourselves with the problems of those in proximity of us. Forming close relationships with those around us allow us to better care for them, reducing the amount of effort required to increase their wellbeing. It is much easier for us to aid a friend or a neighbour suffering from a lack of food or shelter than someone on the other side of the globe. The amount of resources it would expend for us to resolve that suffering will also be measurably lower. Therefore the formation of interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships is conducive to the incremental promotion of wellbeing found in utilitarianism. Abiding by Singer’s argument renders all existing relationships moot. That is, if I was faced with the dilemma of choosing between my mother’s life and that of a stranger, they would be considered equal. Even worst, if you threw in an additional sandwich for a child who skipped …show more content…

This sense of apathy arguably also has utility. It allows us to go about our daily lives without constant deliberation on how we should be compensating for suffering on the other side of the globe. How else can we, as the fallible beings that we are, function normally with this metaphorical rat constantly biting at our toes? Acknowledging our fallibility, Singer’s proposition that we have a moral obligation to prevent something bad from occurring, even in the event where we do not have to sacrifice anything of comparable moral worth, seems too much to ask. This is because it imposes on us the expectation that people have to proactively seek out and absolve others of their suffering should we have the resources to do so. The fact that Singer wants to impose suffrage-reducing acts as a moral obligation instead of simply promoting their occurrence makes it counter-intuitive to pragmatics. This leads me to my second

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