Utilitarianism and World Poverty

chris epic said:
I had to write a summary response for my english final on this article. I thought Peter Singer's "The Singer Solution to World Poverty" was crap. Your thoughts?

http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/19990905.htm
Click to expand...


In ethical theories there are always different ways to judge a situation. I think we may find Singer´s moral judgement as annoying because following his line of reasoning, societies as the USA are choosing consumerism over saving children´s lives.

My opinion is that we as human beings are selfish by nature. We always look for ourselves first and then for the others. This is part of our biology, it is how we have evolved thru millions of years and I am not going to blame nature for it. Dawkins has written a good book about it (the Selfish Gene).

On the other hand, people need an incentive to work from 9 to 5. Money, possesions, social recognision and pleasure are the things that we work for. If we were morally forced to give our money away to save thousand of children in Africa, then what would be the point of getting better education, better jobs, etc. if as a society, we would only be sending money to feed poor children in corrupt countries?.

I am not against this, I am just giving a realistic interpretation why Singer´s suggestion to end world poverty is naive. As an economist, I can also say that income distribution does not reduce poverty if you only use financial aid to feed people. The reduction of poverty happens through investment in education, in infrastructure and goverment´s democratisation.
 
Interesting little essay. I can't see any good arguments against it. We are all in a situation where we could save peoples lives if we only wanted to.
That's true, even if there are people who actively impoverish other people and killing people. They have a far more moral guilt and responsibility for the people that are killed and who live impoverished lives.
But, as we live in the real world, that doesn't change the fact that all the money we spend on tings that are not necessary to support our lives could be spent to save other peoples lives.

But, do we really have a moral responsibility for other people? I say no. Then the whole argument falls apart. I don't judge Bob for chosing not to divert the train from the child to his car. He's not actively responsible for the train killing the kid. And I feel as well that I'm not morally responsible for saving other people. I don't even have a moral responsibility for my family, except for my future kids, because they can't choose to be born.
It's not in human nature to be altruistic, but it's natural to care for one's family and friends because they are important for oneself.
Yes, we could all be saving peoples lives if we wanted to, but we are in no way obligated to do it.
 
Everybody knows the only way to solve world poverty is to throw money at the problem, which is why I support ONE.:boggled:
 
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