‘’Singer’s view of our obligation to help relieve the suffering of people in distant nations.’’ In this paper, I’m going to argue that Singer’s view of our obligation to help relieve the suffering of people in distant nations are right because, if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. The fundamental defect of Singer's argument is that, given our experience of human nature, he sets the moral bar at an impossibly high level. Very few of us readily would or could live up to the standard he asks of us. If society attempted to set its moral standards at Singer's level, we can predict one of three consequences. If his standard
Personality and moral self explain how and why human beings make free choices. The libertarianism theory has been explained by CA Campbell, who said that human beings see themselves as free agents and therefore accept moral responsibility for their actions. Humans must accept responsibility for these actions and face any consequences that may come their way. John Stuart Mill - an influencal figure in Liberatarianism – believe we are free and morally responsible for all our actions. Mill believed it was extremely important that an indivduals free will should not be crushed by society.
Even in “free” countries like the United States there is still corruption, or “plunder” as Bastiat would say, that put limitations on citizen’s natural freedoms. Bastiat claims “We hold from God the gift which, as far as we are concerned, contains all others, Life-physical, intellectual, and moral life (Bastiat 5).” These are rights that Basiat believes is only what the government should protect. Once those rights are protected, however, it is up to the people to keep their government accountable for perversions in laws that would essentially limit them to their natural rights in any way. His explanations of various situations of bad government laws paint a picture of what has gone on in history and still goes on today. The first point that Bastiat highlighted in the book was “If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together, to extend, to organize a common force, to provide regularly for this defense (Bastiat 6).” This made me think that Bastiat was basically approving the American Revolution and suggesting that other countries in Europe at this point in history have the right to be revolutionizing their governments the
When it comes to giving to charities, there becomes a moral dilemma of whether it should be done by personal choice or through a sense of duty. There is also a choice of whether to even help countries that cannot help themselves, when we at home have our own troubles with famine and poverty. I think it is important that we are good ambassadors to third world countries that are in need of assistance. We are not obligated to help those in need, but in a world of morality, it's the right thing to do. In the article by Peter Singer, he writes of the struggle in East Bengal.
As a government that provides the natural freedoms of man to its citizens, it should do all it can to protect its citizens who are threatened. The natural rights of man are a code. If you break the code and abuse your fellow man, you have lost your privileges to these rights. As citizens of a government that keeps us safe, it is not our business to know what steps the government takes to protect us. We are to keep the peace among the nations of the earth because that is our belief as a people, but we must know our enemy, we must know their intentions and what they wish to carry out.
The regime in control must shield the right to life, liberty and property. When Hospers states, “libertarians support all such legislation as will protect human beings against the use of force by others, for example, laws against killing, attempted killing, maiming, beating, and All kinds of physical violence”, he shows this to be true (Velasquez 677). Basically, the government should be the force acting against negative crime committed from one person to another. If the peace is kept mutual between the citizens in the society, the government should not be active at all. The property of a citizen should be kept in safety, Hospers says, “libertarians support legislation that protects the property rights of individuals against confiscation, nationalization, eminent domain, robbery, trespass, fraud and misinterpretation, patent and copyright, libel and slander” (Velasquez 677).
“Modest Proposal” verses “Lifeboat Ethics” First of all, making life decisions for others cannot manipulate the world to become equal. Society has moral obligations toward poverty. Usually the moral obligation to others starts with the intense poverty issue. By reading Jonathan Swift and Garrett Hardin’s articles, the solutions for poverty seem to be easier than ones’ expectation by slaughtering or leaving refugees behind the social norms. Nonetheless, both articles are idealistic.
I previously stated death and suffering from malnutrition are bad, therefore if we can prevent famine without harming ourselves we ought to do it. Ought is a misleading term so I am going to replace it with “morally obliged”. The logical force driving Singer’s construction of his second premise is simply if an individual has the ability to prevent something bad from happening without causing comparable damage and loss of moral integrity, the individual has a duty as a human being living on earth to do
A communitarian view on society states that each individual is responsible for his status inside a given community; that such a community is equally responsible for the status of its individuals. It states that any law or practice should be based on a purely democratic and not a simple majoritarian perspective. Polities should be determined to foster participation and deliberation, not to dictate policies but rather mandate a collective perspective. Indeed all this must be done, and more, in an effort to regulate a healthy society in which all individuals are equal in the community and that contribute equally back to the community. However, how can a society be democratic without being majoritarian?
Human rights are the fundamental rights that humans have by the fact of being human, and that neither created nor can be abrogated by any government. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights did not just emerge easily from a vacuum and it would be the final declaration aimed at securing certain rights for citizens in nation-states. What the declaration includes is traced back to Magna Carta (1215). Those that came after have emerged as strategic responses to social and political alteration. John Locke, who is often credited as the father of human rights and liberalism, maintained that humans were free and equal, and that the ideal society was based on a social contract between the humans and those who governed.