Famine, Affluence, and Morality

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Famine, Affluence, and Morality

• Peter Singer

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The Problem of Famine

• People and governments arent doing what is
  necessary to prevent hunger they value other
  things more than lives. This means developing
  countries have to make choices between starvation
  now or slowing development, which means
  starvation in the future. People are aware of
  hunger the problem is in peoples moral schema,
  we need to change our moral framework.

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Singer argues

• 1. Suffering and death from lack of food and
  shelter and medicine are bad.
• 2. If we can do something to help prevent
  suffering and death from lack of food and shelter
  and medicine without sacrificing anything of
  morally comparable worth then we should help (Or
  If we can do something to help prevent suffering
  and death from lack of food and shelter and
  medicine without sacrificing anything morally
  significant then we should help).
• 3. We can do something to help without
  sacrificing anything of morally comparable worth
• 4. We should help.

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Consideration of the Premises

• He doesnt argue for 1.
• To support 2. he gives the drowning child
  analogy, we have to help - muddy clothes dont
  justify allowing death because they arent
  morally comparable.

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Changing Moral Framework

• But if we accept this premise (in either form)
  this will be a major change in our moral
  framework.
• There are two reasons for this 1. the principle
  doesnt take account of moral distance (whether
  you are near or know the victims) and 2. it does
  not distinguish between cases where there are
  many persons that could help or only one.

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Moral Distance

• Here he asks for a justification of the distance
  principle (rather than his own impartiality
  principle).
• He notes that closeness makes it more likely we
  will help but doesnt show that we ought to help
  more.
• He also notes that if we are closer we are in a
  better epistemic position as far as judging what
  we can do and if we can really help at all, but
  there is pretty good communication and
  transportation so now days the world is like a
  global village. There are expert observers and
  organizations to send aid.

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When Others are Around

• Likewise, he thinks there is no reason why we
  have less duty to help when others can help as
  well. There is a psychological difference but
  not a moral one. Its not like one is less
  obliged to pull the kid out of the lake if others
  are there and doing nothing.

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Possible Objections and Responses

• If all gave x then disaster could be adverted,
  there is no reason why I should give more than
  others, so I should give x.
• The argument doesnt matter if everyone isnt
  going to give x. In such cases giving more than
  x will prevent more suffering so you should give
  more than x. It seems that people should give as
  much as possible (since not everyone will give).

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• But, If everyone does this there will be too much
  money so their sacrifices will not be useful and
  the result will worse than if only some had
  contributed.
• Response The paradox only arises if the
  contribution is simultaneous those giving later
  will not be obligated to give as much.
• But wont this be unfair to those giving first?
• Response Unfairness is better than death

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Conclusions?

• So neither distance not the number of
  contributors to a cause change our moral
  obligations. This means that the distinction
  between duty and charity cant work. Because
  giving is considered charity people dont think
  they have a duty to give.
• If this is right then Singers argument shows that
  some other justification for not giving needs to
  be given.

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First Possible Objection

• This is too drastic people dont judge morality
  this way.

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Response

• How they judge is not what is at issue, and we
  can explain why they judge this way. Imperatives
  of duty are just there to guide our living
  together, other things are charitable because
  they dont help people within our society. But,
  this is just an explanation not a justification.
  He thinks the moral point of view should look
  beyond particular societies and that we can do
  this now in a way we couldnt have done that
  before.
• Someone could just deny this but should offer an
  argument here.

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First objection revised

• If we tried to implement this code morality would
  break down

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Response

• This is absurd it is like saying that if we
  tell people not to kill and to help relieve
  famines they will do neither whereas if we tell
  them not to kill and that it is just nice to help
  relieve famines they will not kill. If this is
  accepted one would need to figure out where to
  draw the line between what to say is good and
  what to say is required in order to get the best
  possible results.

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• This would be difficult and it ignores the fact
  that what people do and even what its possible
  for people to do are influenced by societies
  standards. Finally even if this is true for most
  people, it doesnt mean individuals shouldnt
  hold themselves to this standard.

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Second objection

• It would follow from this picture that we ought
  to work full time to relieve misery.

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Response

• This is true in some circumstances. Besides it
  may work more as a criticism of our normal
  behavior than of the view (what we are doing is
  not sufficient).

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Practical concerns

• Giving away money may not be the best way to end
  starvation governments should be responsible.
• This assumes that private donations discourage
  governmental aid but he says it may be the
  opposite the government has no other way to
  know people care. They have to show that private
  donations do discourage governmental aid. Of
  course he thinks governments should give too.
  Practice what we preach.

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• Without population control we are prolonging (and
  maybe increasing) misery.
• Perhaps we should provide population control or
  offer both at once.

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• Should we give to the level of marginal utility?
  Should one accept the strong version of the
  principle of preventing bad consequences?

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• Even if we accepted the moderate form consumer
  society based on trivial and non-essentials would
  disappear. He thinks this is good, but one might
  worry that slowing down the economy would limit
  the extent to which we could give aid. He admits
  the possibility but says we can do something
  about poverty now and we should we should
  research to see how we could be better at
  providing much more help in the future.

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Summary

• Singer believes that famine is bad, and that we
  can and ought to help relieve it when it is not
  too costly. He doesnt think distance or the
  number of possible contributors matters to
  morality nor does he think a . strict moral
  requirement will break down our moral code. He
  thinks that what people believe about morality is
  independent from what is morally right. If one
  accepts his view it may require them to
  (personally) work full time to alleviate poverty,
  help control population size, figure out what the
  ideal amount of consumer growth is, and give up
  much of the affluence they currently have,
  (perhaps even to the point of marginal utility or
  beyond it). Alternately one could deny that the
  universality principle matters or argue that the
  number of other possible contributors is
  important.

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Questions for Consideration

• Is Singer right if so why? If not why not?
  What would an intelligent opponent say in
  response? Create two valid arguments (one for
  and one against Singer).
• How much of a duty do we have, should we go to
  the level of marginal utility? What do we have
  to take into account in deciding this?
• Is the universality principle too strong? What
  is an argument against it? Is the idea that it
  doesnt matter who else can help right? Why or
  why not?