Rich and Poor

1
Rich and Poor

• by
• Peter Singer

2
Both absolute poverty and absolute affluence
exist.

• Absolute poverty.
• Defined as malnutrition, illiteracy, disease,
  squalid housing, high infant mortality, low life
  expectancy.
• Characterizes 23 of worlds population.
• Absolute affluence.
• Ability to meet all basic needs afford
  luxuries.
• Characterizes the majority (but not all) in
  advanced industrial countries.

3
There is sufficient production of economic goods
in the world that no one has to live in absolute
poverty.

• This is certainly the case for food.
• Sufficient food is produced today to provide
  every person on earth with a nutritionally
  adequate diet and
• This is without putting more land into
  agricultural production or bringing the green
  revolution everywhere.

4
What does Rawls theory say?

• Apply the second principle.
• The current inequality does not leave enough for
  everyone.
• No one could place themselves behind the veil of
  ignorance and assent to this pattern of
  distribution.
• The current world-wide pattern of poverty and
  wealth is not just, and therefore is not
  ethically acceptable.

5
What does Singer say?

• Every serious ethicist would say we should
  prevent what is bad when we can do so without
  sacrificing anything of comparable moral
  significance.
• In the case of world poverty, this means that
  helping is morally required not merely
  something it is nice to do for the people who
  feel like it.