Famine, Affluence and Morality

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11 11 Arguments about Singer’s Principal Lingyan Mao PHIL 2290 DR. Meena Krishnamurthy December 3, 2013 Arguments about Singer’s Principal Lingyan Mao PHIL 2290 DR. Meena Krishnamurthy December 3, 2013 Arguments about Singer’s Principal In Peter Singer’s (1972) article “Famine, Affluence and Morality”, he puts forward the principal of sacrifice. It has two versions, one is strong and the other is moderate and I will explain both in this essay. Furthermore, he also considers affluent people’s obligation and differences between charity and duty, which I will include in my essay, as well. In addition, I will present and analyze one objection clearly and give Singer’s response. Finally I will give my opinion about the objection. Exposition In Singer’s article, he points out that developed countries have not given enough relief funds to poor countries to satisfy refugees’ basic needs. In such circumstance, he proposes the moral implication-the way richer nations react to poor countries’ miserable situation cannot be justified and we cannot take what we have as granted and do nothing about aiding refugees. That is, the affluent are required to alleviate the famine. To argue for this conclusion, Singer begins with the assumption that a lack of food, shelter and medical care is bad. This assumption in his view is apparent to people that are suffering and dying due to starvation. Lacking essential needs is obviously a negative thing. Under this hypothesis, he points to the principal of sacrifice. The principal has two versions: strong and moderate. According to the strong version, he thinks that if people have power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of “comparable moral importance”, then people ought to do it (Singer, 1972 p231). In this statement the key word is “comparable”, Singer wants to show

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